Frank Turner, christened "Francis Edward Turner", is an English folk musician and songwriter from Hampshire. He used to be part of a band, Million Dead, but left to pursue a solo acoustic-based career and now tours with his backing band The Sleeping Souls. Frank Turner has currently released six solo albums, his most recent being Positive Songs For Negative People which was released in August 2015.In the following interview with The AU. Review, Frank Turner talks about his newest album and what it is all about for him and his band:
His previous albums, in order of release, are:
-Sleep Is for the Week
-Love Ire & Song
-Poetry of the Deed
-England Keep My Bones
-Tape Deck Heart
Frank Turner is well known for his liberal stance in politics and has received thousands of death threats throughout his career from conservative individuals. Turner spoke about this by saying it was "Really vicious, horrible s**t, all because of expressing an opinion contrary to the mainstream of thought within the entertainment or creative world. It was f*****g horrible. I don't want to go through anything like that again."
Frank Turner has been signed to XtraMile Recordings for his whole career, however when creating Tape Deck Heart he also signed to Polydor, becoming part of both labels. This dual partnership continues today.Turner was educated at Eton on an academic sholarship which he hated it and so he spent a lot of his time at punk shows rather than studying. He went on to study for a degree in history at London School of Economics and Political Science. Immediately after graduating, Turner went on tour and remained so for the best part of 10 years. He also played the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Upon the release of his single "The Way I Tend To Be" in 2013, Turner released a documentary about his life, his development as an artist and his time touring.
This research will aid in the creation of my music video as it has allowed me to gain a better understanding of the artist that we will be focusing on and has caused me to be able to notice how various aspects of his life have effected his music and the way it has been constructed. This means that we will stand a better chance in being able to reflect this in our music video.
Video Analysis:
Frank Turner's music video for his single The Way I Tend To Be is a symbolic narrative video, shown through the distinct storyline that runs throughout. There are slight aspects of performance within the clip, shown through the lip sync, however this is to add to the narrative of the video, rather than to showcase Turner's performance.
The video clearly appears to fit the folk genre of music due to the locations used within the video and the simplicity behind it. This style of video is quite common within the folk genre and therefore allows it to adopt common conventions of the genre, such as the artist's clothing and the aforementioned locations. It is, however, quite common for folk music videos to have narratives which appear simple yet have much deeper meanings and this is adopted for Turner's video. The narrative appears to symbolise Turner's uncovering of the past, depicted through the digging of the hole, before walking away from it whilst the crowds of people appear to symbolise the way in which curiosity can compel us to become involved in events of little meaning to us.
The video itself does not appear to tell a complete story but rather is depicting a smaller story from within a much wider one. The video beings with Frank Turner stood in the countryside, wearing a sign, with a shovel over his shoulder. There is no explanation to why he is there which is what leads the audience to believe that the video begins part through a much larger story. The video then follows as he walks
alone a path through the countryside. There is then a shot from Frank's point of view that is used to indicate how far he has come which is followed by another section of the narrative following Frank as he strays from the path. Turner then stops to remove the sign before continuing on his way and it is seen that a female character begins to follow him. Frank then walks into the middle of a field and begins to dig a hole and the female character watches him in confusion. The remainder of the video shows Frank continuing to dig a bigger and deeper hole whilst more people begin to gather around the site, gaining media attention. The video ends with Turner climbing out of the hole and walking away. The lack of explanation to this is what cements the idea in the reader's mind that this is merely a small section of a much larger story.
The record company's role within the video is to ensure that the video reflects and compliments the emotional music. This is important for the genre of music as well as for the representation of the artist. The video features a non-stereotypical representation of gender through the way that it depicts Frank Turner as an emotional person which is usually a trait associated with female characters. This allows him to become more relatable to his audience as he displays a more honest depiction of himself. Turner has a highly active and prominent online presence through social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube which he uses to distribute his music and to keep fans updated on albums and singles being released. He also has an active blog and forum on his website which he uses to connect with fans and update them on changes in his career.
The video is set in a few similar locations in the countryside including a forest and a field. This connotes the way in which Frank is attempting to get in touch with his emotions as he becomes in touch with nature. The most dominant colours within the video are the earthy tones of nature which are present for the duration. This creates a sense of calm and simple beauty which reflects the lyrics of the song. My favourite shot composition is at 1:28 when the camera becomes the head of the shovel. This is because it creates a feeling of being involved with the action whilst simply gliding into the narrative of the video. There are a few instances within the video where the camera becomes the shovel and therefore moves with it which I have previously mentioned. Other than this, there are many instances when the camera tracks Turner which has been done to help accentuate the simplicity of the narrative and the journey that Turner is on. The editing of the video is slow-paced and on beat which reflects the song's purity and serenity.
The target audience for this video appears to be working class teens and adults, between the ages of 14 and 40, which is indicated by the people staring in the video and the simple style of the video. The people featured within the video are all from varying age groups, with no particular age group being represented more frequently. This could be in an attempt to retain his wide fan base that was obtained through continuous touring and a performance at the London Olympic Opening Ceremony. The audience are most likely to access the video through YouTube which allows them to share it across other social media platforms such as Facebook and Tumblr.This analysis will help me when it comes to making my own video as it has allowed me to explore Frank Turner's own style of music video and therefore has given an idea as to what I should aim to achieve with my own music video for his music.
Frank Turner - The Next Storm
I am doing a second analysis for a folk video to reinforce my knowledge and make sure I know all of the generic conventions and representations shown in a folk genre music video. I have chosen to do a Frank Turner one as he is our chosen artist and it also gives me a first chance to look at his iconography; to make sure when we make our video for one of his songs it fits in and takes themes from his others.
The genre of the song is folk/rock and both the sound of the song and video borrows from both. Doing a lot of its performance in a rock way but the narrative shots telling a story like the folk genre does still borrowing a bit from rock with its content though.
The music video keeps to Frank turner's iconography throughout with a dark setting the use of story telling , However the costume side of things are different while he usually wears very casual clothes that fit to the folk genre; the two things you see him in are very dressed up and dressed down to become a boxer.
The Narrative of the song switches between a performance in a boxing ring with high key lighting and Frank in a boxing match in low key lighting. Todorov equrliuruim theory is very loosely in the video with it starting with Frank the Protagonist in the video training then as the match starts he appears to be outmatched by his rival and looks like his going lose (disruption and recognition), but as the song picks up he finds the strength to overcome his rival (resolution) and win the match reaching equrliuruim again as they shake hands to end.
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| Oh Brother |
The video represents a few of Goodwin's theory's with the video showing stereotypical band playing in the back and Frank dancing around "performing" the song for his fans getting really into it.
The video also represents Franks iconography with represented themes that are seen in videos like "Oh Brother" and "Losing Days"
The characters represented in the video are a hero or the protagonist and a rival the antagonist with it only shown frank as the hero because the lyrics and performance shots conotate to him trying to overcome an obstacle and be ready for "the next storm" to come his way.
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| Performance |
The music video has used two locations, or one location with different time and lighting. both locations are a boxing ring one in low key lighting at the time of the fight set up to look dark and gritty and give set a serious more action movie mood.
The second is the ring again but this time with high key lighting at the time of the performance this has fans dancing and watching as Frank and his back up band play the song to them. They have used the two variations of the location to create juxtaposition between the performance that just shows the song being enjoyed and the match that shows it has a not so obvious meaning to it conetateing but not obviously to show its about overcoming and being prepared to tackle everything live throws at you.
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| Boxing match |
There are a combination of different camera shots used in the video. It contains a lot of close ups usually on the artist face to either promote his face or to show how his feeling in the narrative to add to the message the artist wants to express in this video. long shots and mid shots are used to establish the location and set up the scene. with mid-shots also used to tell a lot of the narrative allowing us tyo see what's happing in the boxing match.
The edit has quite a slowed pace with quite a bit of time on each shot before cutting. it speeds up towards the end of the song. The edit is slow because the majority of the song is focusing on performance mostly so its not important to move on quick as it isn't trying to tell to much of a story, with the narrative shots included in the video to make it a little bit more interesting to watch.
The audience for this video is young adults late teens. this is because the music is very folk based and the video is mostly performance so would attract this age as they go to lots of concerts.
Posted by Olivia Calver And Samuel Skinner
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