ipod advertising from what i’ve seen is colourfull bright and upbeat songs. Its white writing and dark shillouettes on colourful backgrounds spans both print and televsion. Very distintive looking it would make an ideal style refrence for my prodouct.

I think the adverts upbeat song is key to its sucess and maybe not the visulas that a customer soon relates the upbeat cool dace your heart out songs to the Ipod and not any generic device.

Not including diffrent colours and storage sizes the ipod has had 16 diffrent incarnations over the last ten years. This made me think a useful part of my prodouct would be a timeline profileing the launch of each new genertaion and model of device it would help the reader understand its pogression into the device it is today.

I have decided for my final case study to focous on the iPod as it was the biggest thecnological advance to help the music industry in my time. I t had quirky advertising and was and is very popular most mp3 devices now just being named iPod’s i have decided that it will take the form of a book as i havn’t produced a great deal of print work durring the course and i think this would help expand my skills base. The booklet would be a4 it could be used as a short refrence in a book or includedas an insert in a magazine.

My working Style has adapted from beginning the course from being very relaxed and spontaneous to a more broad style of looking at the wider context of where my products would be placed and who they would be used by. This has given me the abilty to understand why id be making something and what it would be used for rather then just making content for the sake of it.

Although my research skills and presenting research and planning still need dramatically improving as I find it difficult to take the research steps including industry information and style references.

Although gaining exciting ways to look at things who would use my product or view my film what would they use it for of think about it, what if I applied a different style to it how would taht affect it and how could it benefit.

When I started the course I was already very aware of were my skills lay and what I liked doing. I liked making films, not necessarily just narrative based films but shorts, music videos and reports. I wasn’t nearly as interested in print based and graphics and web design. But I enrolled on the course because I wanted to learn how better place products I created gain skills in flash and animation. To understand the creative industry. Although I was very interested in film and had skills they weren’t very professional and only based on Adobe premier.

I wanted to gain skills and be more confident in graphical based software such as illustrator and I think I’ve gained these skills to an extent where I know how to create simplistic posters and edit photos. I have been introduced to the majority of the Adobe suite and understand individual pieces of software much better. Also being introduced to industry standard software Final cut gave me ideas and the ability to edit films properly. I’ve also been introduced to tools such as Dreamweaver and flash that before the course i had no idea at all how to use but I gained skills in these very quickly allowing me to now make interfaces animations and work on website content. I think ive surpassed what i excepted to get from my first year not only in terms of skills but thinking about how I can use them in a relevant way. Such as creating a new interface to sell digital music for Hmv.

Id like to pogress on to the second year and then hopefully do a 3^rd in film and television to finalise my BA although in which sector of employment id like to go into is still very uncertain for me.

Record Companies cooperate

The music industry today is very competitive and with downloads replacing conventional hard media sales. Over recent times piaracy has become a big issue with the UK government taking action to combat this. Laid out in the digital economy bill passed through in the week leading up to general election campaigning. (1) It proposes that if people are caught downloading content illegally they will have their internet connection slowed or even disabled depending on the severity of their activity.  Record companies such as EMI and Warner music have falling share prices and are falling as business and support the bill. (2) Of course it’s arguable that people should be paying for the content they use and realise it’s not their property because they can obtain it without paying.  The people eventually losing out are the artists, because effectively if they don’t get paid they aren’t making a living and would proceed to dropping out of the business.

   Getting into the industry is extremely hard and demoralising to artists. Bigger companies are reluctant to sign acts that aren’t guaranteed to be big sellers. Sony BMG, EMI and Warner losing money need guaranteed sellers. Pop contests such as Pop Idol, X factor, Britain’s got talent and Fame academy all produce large incomes for record labels as the programmes well received  on major networks and in turn usually with the exception of 2009 guarantee usual big spots in the charts such as Christmas number ones. The winning act is usually a big sensation for a short to prolonged period as the show produces fans for the acts. It can be argued that the shows dismiss “real and talented” acts because they want wonders not personality. Because afterall it is an industry.

Personal

Music is an art form and increasingly available to listen to publically for free, YouTube,  Spotify, radio and television so recording it from one of these formats or sharing it is acceptable because its in the mainsteam public. Music is also exspensive in some people’s eyes as £7/9:99 is the average download price on the most popular music store iTunes for an album. People are often reluctantly forced into purchasing music this way because Albums and singles are now less likely to be stocked in record stores. Because record companies so reluctant to press CD’s, because of increased costs added by smaller production runs of music discs. Again record companies press sure sellers and push out smaller labels whose acts are less popular or at least not in the mainstream.  Causing more individual acts to have to sell music online at higher prices through labels who aren’t as pressuring on their acts to conform to a set ideal and some may argue these artists are producing real music and not selling out to become famous as people on contests aren’t as passionate as they don’t play their own instruments largely or aren’t allowed to in auditions so it could be belived that they do it for the fame and glory.

Ssome artisits believe it isn’t about fame or money and honestly want to make music because they love it artists such as nine inch nails have been known to just leave music on usb sticks lying around in public places. Some artists such as little comets signed to larger labels but reciving less funding combat this by producing their own stunts such as bursting into university lectures, playing on trams and in high streets stores off the cuff.

(1)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/08/digital-economy-bill-passes-third-reading

(2)

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/03/digital-economy-bill-the-final-instalment/

In the 50’s with limited outlets compared today. It was hard to create advertising campaign or advert for an act. First of all music videos had not been invented so the radio, television and print. Acts weren’t as falsified as they are now lip syncing unheard of. So television appearances and radio play would be key to getting people to go out and buy the music created by different artists or go to concerts

Now, music is allot easier to promote with our multi platform development.

First of all our television sets are more advanced with more channels and larger viewership’s with less stringent rules on what can be shown and how. For example music videos introduced on MTV on august 1^st 1981 brought a whole new art form to the world for presentation of artists. These also allow for further promotion as they provide visuals for the songs during television interviews as well as providing fill ins for adverts. Prodouct placement in these music videos is common as advertisers pay large sums to an artist’s record company to for a period use their product or at least show a shot of it. Record labels use others videos to feature other artists signed to the label in person or on media players.

The internet has also allowed better dispersal of music for start up acts with websites such as MySpace and Facebook allowing for showcases of their talent. With the ability to reach huge audiences simply and for startup bands avoid costs of individually hosted sites. ITunes can be linked form these sites to purchase music legally instantaneously, same with tickets to live shows.

Twitter allows a level of personal communication through 140 charchter messages often dilved to mobile devices as well..

A print poster would be an ideal way to advertise an event or band playing as they would be put up in the area the event was going t take lace reaching its audience directly, there’s no need for television or magazine ads as they would reach an audience not interested in the event another effective means would be local radio as the 50’s played a big part of the radio culture as television was expensive most people listened to the more affordable radio.