The Impact Of The Internet On The Music Industry

The music industry is contently increasing and changing every year, every month, everyday! And nobody can be certain of what will happen to the industry in the time to come.

One way the internet has had an impact on the music industry is the way people now listen to music. It is no longer large records on record players or CD's in a portable CD Player, instead people are using internet services such as We7 and Spotify to listen to their own music from a very large selection...for free. Of course things which are free have issues, one issue is that people can use free software that records the system sound and record the song as it is being streamed for free across the internet...Money does not need to be spent on music now that the internet has gotten involved!

As well as people getting music via recording, they also download it from peer-to-peer websites and services which offer a wide range of music for no fee. The songs are hosted by real people who then host more, who then host more...the cycle is never ending.

Legal actions are trying to be taken to some of these sites as it breaches Copyrights and other Acts. However seeing that well over half the populations music is illegally obtained it is a very long process to put an official end to illegal file sharing and music pirating.

However the internet has not ruined music completely. When a person likes a song they would want to share it with their friends, before the major increase in the internet and music they would have had to asked the people to meet up in order to listen to the song. Now days you click one button and you can share it with the world using social networking, viral. People on social networking sites such as Facebook receive a notification whenever a friend has posted a song for example on their wall, this friend may then re-post and so on. This is not illegal however works along the same lines as illegal file sharing, once it starts it is almost impossible to stop.

Like I said earlier nobody really knows what is around the next corner however I believe that the relationship between the music industry and the internet is going to increase until the internet will be the only place to get and share music with friends and family.

Storyboards

Below are the storyboards I have made to help guide us when making the music video using Final Cut Express. Storyboards are very important as they make the editing process a lot less time consuming and frustrating.

Ideas For The Costumes In The Music Video

Now that we have a good idea on what will be happening in the music video we decided to think of some of the costumes that maybe used in the music video.

One idea we were certain on was that we will try to keep the colours to a minimal and only use dark colours, preferable black. The reason for this is because the colour black is code for misery and sadness and fits perfectly with our track choice, Bring Me To Life.

We are not going to have very big, outrageous costumes...like Lady Gaga, as we feel it does not fit in well with our music video and the genre. We will have the main artists wearing normal dark clothing, with some jewelery, such as rings and necklaces.

The necklaces and rings would be suitable if they had some kind of gothic symbol on them such as a skull, bones or red roses. When we come to shooting we will insure that we check what every artist is wearing to insure it is appropriate because we want this music video to turn out perfect!

One more thing would be red or black nail varnish as this again is code for misery and a convention of the gothic, rock genre we have chosen.

Ideas For The Performance In The Music Video

Now that we have a rough idea of what will be in our narrative we decided to move on and decide what we will do for the performance side of the music video.

One thing we were all certain on was that we did not want the entire performance in one place or shot using only one particular shot.

We decided that we would film in three different locations:

• On a large open field. This is code for freedom and getting away from reality as we learnt while watching Eminem and Rhianna's music video, Love the way you lie.
• On some steps preferably outside. This will make the performance a lot more interesting because it would not all be shot with the singer standing.
• In a studio, or stage of some sort with a black backdrop. This shows the more professional side of the performance. Also the black colour is code for sadness, misery, upset, coldness and emotion.

Ideas For The Narrative In The Music Video

Before starting on a storyboard and rough sketch of what will be happening in the music video we decided to brain storm some ideas for the narrative of the music video.

We knew the initial concept of the music video and wanted to have a very clear division between the narrative and the performance.

Our initial concept for 'Bring Me To Life' is too base the entire video on one girls journey through her teenage life. We are going to strongly show the bad side of this teenagers life and eventually towards the end of the video we will show her committing suicide, one way or another.

As this is a very intense and emotional music video we need to have strong narrative concepts which would cause this event to happen. Below is a brain storm of the ideas which we did:

Finished Album Artwork

Final Artwork -

Front -

Back -

Spine -

Creating The Album Artwork (Spine)

Above is a video showing exactly how I managed to create the spine of the album artwork. I used the program Photoshop to put the cover together.

Creating The Album Artwork (Back)

Above is a video showing exactly how I managed to create the back cover of the album artwork. I used the program Photoshop to put the cover together.

Creating The Album Artwork (Front)

Above is a video showing exactly how I managed to create the front cover of the album artwork. I used the program Photoshop to put the cover together.