Song Lyrics Analysis

Moodboard

Letter to Record Company

The track I have chosen to make a music video for is 'Gashina' (가시나) by Sunmi. The song does already have a music video made for it, however, I have not seen it and do not plan to watch it so as to not reference iconography from it by accident.

My task here is to write a letter to the record company asking for permission to use the track, however, because the record label which Sunmi released the song on is Korean, I want to challenge myself by writing to them in their language- I also think that this is the best way to show them respect.

The record company is called 'MAKE US Entertainment' and they have a web page through which I could contact them.

contact@makeus.com






Drafts of the letter are below:

I typed up the Korean version (below), intending to send it, but upon further research, I realised that companies prefer letters written in English as it looks more professional and academically respected. I wrote the following:

Korean version:

관계자 분께,

먼저 내 나른 한국어 실력을 사과할게. 이름은 Csenge 입니다, 영국의 미디어를 공부하는 헝가리 학생입니다. 저는 미디어 연구 과정의 일부인 뮤직 비디오에 순미 씨 '가시나'를 사용하는 곳에 대해 물어보고 있습니다.

저는 그곳에서 이익을 얻으려고하지 않고, 선로를 위해 신용을 가셔갈 작정이 아니다. 순수한 교육 목적을 위한 것입니다.

시간 내 주셔서 감사합니다,

Németi Csenge

Initial Ideas

Trial Music Video Evaluation

Audience Research

From my experience with K-Pop, I realised that the majority of fans are aged between 13-22 (with some exceptions) therefore, I created a questionnaire to suit that specific age group. I'd like to cater to people my age, therefore, I will be looking at the higher end of the spectrum (16-20) when considering age of my audience.

I also understand that there are some lyrics that could be considered obscene to younger audiences (the original version of 'Cherry Bomb' by NCT 127 being banned on some music channels for obvious sexual referencing), however, I will not have to worry about such lyrics as the track I plan to use does not contain any. Furthermore, I am aware that, as with any commercial aspect of any industry, sex sells. K-Pop being a majorly commercial and manufactured genre in South Korea, it does mean that they use the same techniques as other advertising corporations to sell its music. Of course, there is a difference between 'classy sexy' and 'raunchy', Girl's Day's 'Something', demonstrating just that; their concept being considered 'classy sexy'. Once again, I will not have to worry about offending certain people with such concepts as I don't plan to include it in my music video, however, I thought it worth mentioning.

Trial Music Video Questionnaire

In order to aid my research, I treated this trial music video as I will treat my actual music video. This will not only provide me with experience, but also an example to follow for my actual product. In order to be successful in this, I created a questionnaire to which people in my class and friends from other places are able to respond. Such a wide audience will help me achieve a much more accurate response, as K-Pop is becoming more and more international. I will not evaluate the responses, however, I will refer back to them when needed to see which aspects of it were most successful.

Trial Music Video

During my summer in Dorset, I filmed various activities that I did in order to create a 'trial' or practice music video so that I know what kind of responsibility I will have when conducting the production of my actual music video. I have included the YouTube video below and I will ensure to perform audience research and an evaluation on a smaller scale than I would for my real music video, just as a brief way of measuring what some of my experiences will be like.

Editing Sequence Experiment

I created an editing sequence to G Dragon's Crooked (2013) in order to test my skills in editing. I plan to film more over the summer and build on this video below:

I understand that this is a very short sequence, however, it allowed me to experiment with editing to a beat and also to experiment with the split RGB colour effect I learned in one of my previous posts. The more I build on this, the more it will look like a music video, therefore I will attempt to make a trial music video in order to aid my research into the experience of making one, before I embark on producing the real video without experience.