Stars, Celebrities & Personalities, overview. - Nick Lacey

Film Stars

• In early Hollywood the performers were anonymous and ofter not even proper actors.
• The producers refused to name them as they were worried they would demand more money.
• In 1910, Carl Laemmle instituted a wage inflation by offering Biograph Girl from $24 to $1000, she took it became the first film star, named Florence Lawrence (FL)
• Laemmle promoted FL by planting a story in the St. Louis press, saying the she had died in an accident.
• The creation of a star requires mass media. It is insufficient for stars only to appear in films, TV, etc. details of their lives need to be circulated in the public domain, they don't even have to be true, just of interest to the audience.
• A factual profile of a film star us just as much a part of the constructed image as the star's appearance in films.

Celebrities

• Celebrities rely upon the secondarceleby texts for the construction of their persona.
• In recent years the numbers of sports celbrities has increased, especially British footballers.
• Magazines tend to bre 'kinder' in their coverage. Newspapers, especially the 'red tops' are more likely to 'bite' the 'celeb'.
• The media coverage of Princess Diana seemed to dominate her life so much that, at times, it semmed she did not feel alive unless she featured in the press.

Personalities

• Similar to celebrities, they haven't done anything worth celebrating.
• They rely upon nothing except being celebrated in publications, such as, Chat and  Hello magazines.
• They are only famous for being famous.
• Caprise Bourret came to 'fame' in 1996 as UK's new Miss Wonderbra and populated Lad's Mags for many years afterwards.
• By 2001 Caprise Bourret was attempting to become a pop star as a way of feeding further coverage.

Indiana State

The 'Indie' band that our group (Me, Fergus and James) have designed is called Indiana State. They will be playing blues rock music, like artists such as The White Stripes and The Black Keys.

Image

 Our band will consist of one male and two females, this will attract both genders to the band. Also, the band will be targetting both genders, from the teenagers to people around the age of fifty.

The band will all wear plain looking, brown suits like the ones shown in the image. They will wear these clothes in the music video, whenever playing live, and in photo shoots, this is so that they will create a memorable image for fans to enjoy. They will all be dressed the same to keep the focus on all three of them, rather than just on the lead singer, like most bands.





This will also be portrayed in stage, as the drummer will be in line with the rest of the band on stage like The Black Keys.
 





The Band

Craig Chimming- He is the lead singer and lead guitarist. He will have long hair with a scruffy beard and a kind looking face. He will play a deep, red, electric guitar, to give more attention to the musical instrument rather than the band's looks.

Amanda Johnson- She is the bassist and assiting vocalist. She will have a large build, similar to Adele's and plain, brown hair. This is to take focus away from the band's image and put the focus on the music. Also, it will show that even women are talented musicians. Her bass guitar will be pure and white.










 

Zoe Buffon- She is the drummer. She will have a normal build and blonde hair, she will be naturally good looking and not heavily made up. She will not show off her attractiveness and wear the suit like the rest of the band. She will play golden drums.

Music video concept

We want Indiana State to perform a cover of 'Sexy Back' by Justin Timberlake, but with their blues rock twist on the song. We chose this song because it is completely different to Indiana State's usual style of music which we think will appeal to a wider audience and get the audience thinking that they are a controversial band.

 

The music video will be low budget and self directed consisting of half performance by the band and the other half a narrative. The narrative part of the video will take place on the streets with a beautiful girl living on the streets brimming with potential but having nothing. She will then go through a battle to reach the top and fame. She manages to buy nice clothes with a new job she has and it goes on like that until she finally makes it to Vegas where she is one of the most desired women in western America. Meanwhile the band have their set on  the desert planes of Las Vegas in the heat including plenty of establishing, close ups and wide angled shots.

 

 The Press release is about the recently released video of their cover of sexyback, the video attracted alot of attention and went viral within days with their extrodinary twist on the song mixing different genres of music together. The video gained support from Radio 1 and Xfm, amongst other stations. With numerous plays of their song floating around the media world their fame grew gaining them a much larger and wide spread fan base than before just before their self titled album is set to be released.

This attraction was good advertising for the new album and was a huge success in their career and was definately a turning point in their career as a band which brought them wealth and fame. Yet their failures were the 4 hard years beforehand in which they were trying hard to make it big but because of their eccentric style and set up which differs from other bands no one paid them much attention. They were judged on image not their music.

Coexist

I am designing an inter-cultural, female Hip-Hop group. There will be one white, British woman, one black, British woman with African dissent, one Japanese woman & one Indian woman.
The group will be around the age of 20-25 because I am targeting the Hip-Hop market internationally, predominantly the teenage market.

Ms. Africa - The black, British/African woman will be presented as 'sexy' having her hair in pigtails. She will wear trainers with an african style skirt and top revealing cleavage but with a western style hoody over the top to add the urban element.

 Ms. Britain - The white, British woman will be presented as very urban with a particularly british twist. She will have her hair down wearing plenty of make-up. She will wear jeans, trainers with a hoody. Under the hoody she will wear a white shirt and a dickie bow as the British twist.

Ms. Japan - The Japanese woman will have her hair and make-up like that of a Geisha woman, traditional to Japan. She will wear a hoody and jeans with trainers and she will carry an umbrella like the one in the picture.

Ms. India - The Indian woman will not be showing any skin except her face and hair. She will wear a Sari with a denim jacket over the top to add the urban element.

Music Video

Coexist's first single will be a cover of Black Eyed Peas' Where is the love? this is because it is a song  about bringing the world together and it questions society's views on different cultures. The group will give the song an electro/dance backing track giving it a more party feel. The video will consist of narrative and performance. The narrative will follow each member of the group individually, from their home nations to a giant part in London city centre. The performance parts will be taking place in a large arena full of people dancing a long, looking to be having a great time.

PRESS RELEASE 

Coexist lead a protest throughout London, campaigning about ending racism throughout the country and the world. The story gets media coverage in the newspapers and on the television news, as the protest becomes so large that it has to be controlled by police.

All of the proceeds from Coexist's new single will go to charities supporting 3rd world country development and aid. They will also play a huge, free, one night concert at Hide Park, London City with all drink, food and merchandise sales going to the same charities.

The History of the Music Video

Elvis Presley Hound Dog(1956)

This is one of the first music videos ever made. It is a video of a live performance, there are few shot and they are mainly on Elvis, the guitarist has a close up and there is a shot of the crowd to show the excitement on their faces.

Elvis Presley Don't Be Cruel(1956)

The video for Hound Dog showed Elvis' pelvic movements and the government at the time believed it was too sexual so they banned Elvis' pelvis being shown in video, hence it only showing him from the shoulder upwards.

The Beatles A Hard Day's Night(1964)

The Beatles began the narrative element to music videos with A Hard Day's Night. They brought out a feature film which included performances of their songs from the album on it. The music video now is more of an art form.

The Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever(1972)

There is no performance and it is very artistic in the drug inspired imagery. It uses better production techniques and different shot type. It is safe to say that this video is very 'trippy' .

The Buggles Video Killed The Radio-Star(1979)

Part Performance and part narrative. A set has been created just to facilitate the video. The title of the record explains what it's all about, the industry now isn't as much about the music, it's more about the video and the whole package. The video is also very futuristic.

The Jackson 5 Can You Feel It?(1980)

There is lots of special effects in the video which completely changed the nature of music videos because they raised the bar in terms of sale numbers. The video, like many before it has no performance and has a narrative suggesting that The Jackson 5 can bring world peace. Also, the video contains parts in it that aren't on the single, e.g. diegetic sound and extra 'film-like' clips.

MTV was created in 1981 which showed 24 hours of music videos, this meant that anybody could watch a music video whenever, without having to purchase them.

Michael Jackson Smooth Criminal(1987)

This video focuses solely on the dancing and performance of MJ and his dancers. The beginning of formation dance in music videos started with Michael Jackson.

Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer(1986)

This video uses stop-motion, it is very much again about what is happening on screen rather than the song itself.