The Music Biz was a mixed documentary as it had a voice over that lead the narrative, interviews with expertise and archive footage which included music videos from several performers; this was used as evidence to show his success. The themes were clear within this documentary; the main theme was about marketing and campaigning of music videos. This theme was split into different related themes such as: - The importance of a Christmas No1, High expectations of music, Difficulties managing money within a music video and the resurrection or a comeback of a performer.
In the beginning, they introduced the case study of Meatloaf and the resurrection of his music career. They start to explain about the production of his new single and the money costs that it will take to create this comeback. This began to raise questions such as whether all the money that the marketing managers put into his career will pay off in the long run, so in short will he be successful or not. This primary question doesn’t seem apparent at the start as the managers are enthusiastic about the project whilst the media claim that Meatloaf is ‘just a washed up artist’. Therefore this makes the viewers want to continue watching to see whether marketing campaigns can actually reform a dead career. The middle represents a conflict as the managers show a struggle with costing as the music video was a lot more expensive then they first thought which even results in one member of the production team having to remortgage his own house to help pay for the cost of the music video, which shows how much faith they are putting into it for an increasing payout. The end shows that all of the marketing teams hard work paid off as Meatloaf’s musical return was a success which was proven by his single “I would do anything for love” remained at number one for eight weeks. They believe that the key to his success was that he went around the world to promote himself and he did numerous interviews and concerts, this is why the village people were unsuccessful with their ploy to come back as their record label had to do more promoting than the actual band did, this made the band receive a negative image to their international fans.
One of the most used camera shots were the basic medium shots used for the interviews. Several zooms were used to focus at the right person/place e.g. a zoom was used across a lake to focus on the Virgin Media headquarters. Pan shots were also used between Meatloaf and the director to show the power struggle between them. They used a very unconventional technique as Meatloaf actually talks to the camera and the camera nods in response which makes the documentary almost turn into a self reflective documentary. Another unconventional technique is when Michael Bay is being interviewed in his boardroom, they do one long take around the room when normally they use 2/3 cameras to capture it.
Blue screens were used during the interviews so that the documentary makers could place promotional articles and posters of Meatloaf in the background whilst the interviewer was being interviewed. It also showed Meatloaf on location in LA, shooting his music video and then in London promoting his album either though he was struggling to market his product. Also it shows footage of Meatloaf when he appeared on Good Morning Britain & O-Zone as these were popular slots at the time.
The sound used in the documentary was mainly natural sound that came from the interviews. There was no music bed used within this documentary, the only sound which was placed was the actual soundtrack from Meatloaf. The only sound effect used was the heartbeat played in the background when there was a conflict of whether the amount of money will be paid back to them.
There wasn’t a lot of editing involved in this documentary; there was a shot reverse shot between Meatloaf and Michael Bay which showed the power struggle between the two. Dissolves were also used instead of cutaways; it dissolved from person to person. Many cutaways were used to prevent jump cuts, these cutaways included such things as:- The music video “I would do anything for love”, Press conferences, Around the world shots, clippings from newspaper articles.
This documentary consisted mainly of archive material; it was mainly used for cutaways when people were being interviewed. They used a variety of music videos relevant to the subject matter to show the success that comes from good marketing campaigns, they used artists such as: - Take that, Mr. Blobby and The Village People. They used footage from Tops of the Pops 1993 introducing Meatloaf before he played his hit song. They also showed footage of different award ceremonies that Meatloaf was present at.
Graphics were used when introducing a new interviewee with their name in white font over a grey banner, this was done to make the person’s name stand out and they also showed the logo from which company they came from, this was done to make it look more professional so the viewer can trust the information that was being said. Other graphics which were used were articles and people were superimposed onto a background magazine, although this sounds pretty acceptable nowadays, the documentary was done in the mid 90’s so this would appear more exciting and new to the viewers.
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