Visual Style and Image - Bronwyn Stevens

As Jenny and Johnny is a newest band they don’t have any official music videos. They do of them when they were in previous bands and solo artists. But when looking at their photo’s to promote the band we can see in the mise en scene, elements to signify them as a band. Their image is very important to signify them as they have an iconic vintage 50’s rock and roll style. I feel that they show this in the setting of the photos by using an urban element as they use an outside/street and a vintage old car in quite a few shots. The photos are natural looking as there not shot in a studio. Their whole visual element is very American with their image and mise en scene.      

We also see they have a recurring theme of them using colours scheme of black, blue and red. And they have a logo of a blue snake in a circle with ‘Jenny and Johnny written in red. We see this logo on the back of their jackets in photo’s, and it’s on their website as well. 

When looking back in their previous music video, Rilo Kiley (Jenny’s old band) and Johnathan Rice solo career, their music video’s show they mix’s performance with narrative. In the song ‘Silver Lining ‘ by Rilo Kiley the narrative is of Jenny on her wedding day, getting ready to get married to one of her band mates, then leaving him at the allure. They mix it with them playing as a band together with their quirky image standing out. I feel that when Jenny and Johnny do a music video they will mix the two together as because them as band members are in a relationship they would have a story about relationships in the song.  

Artist Research Assignment - Post 1 Image and Genre - Bronwyn Stevens

Jenny and Johnny is an American band, made up of a duo of a girl (Jenny Lewis) and boy (Johnahan Rice). Their genre of music is indie folk/rock and alternative. Their image works with their style of music as they’ve based their image on having a casual laid back vintage element with some 5o’s rock and roll. I like their style, as their music is quite old school and so is there look, which makes them unique.

These images show their vintage look as you can identity their individual style as they will go for patterned material, have leather or denim jacket or wear sunglasses. Their song ‘Big Wave’ demonstrates their genre of working with their image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwtV7L5bxtk

Their image has slightly evolved from when they started off in the music business. Jenny Lewis started off in a band called ‘Rilo Kiley’ which is an indie rock band. She has still kept the vintage image but I think it was more quirky and contrivers as we see in this image she is wearing a sparkly bra and pants with a see though night gown on. Her band mate image is slightly quirkier to other bands as they have a bit more detail to their clothing but it’s still got that casual relaxed feeling to it.

Where as Johnathan Rice when he had started off as a soloist (doing indie and folk genre of music) had this relaxed casual scruffy image. As you would see him in jeans just a T-shirt and his hair was quite long.

When they became Jenny and Johnny we see their image become one as Jenny’s image becomes more casual and grown up but still has a bit of quirkiness to it and Johnny’s image is pretty much the same but it’s a bit more vintage. 

Compared with a band called ‘Best Coast’ which are similar to genre to Jenny and Johnny, are an indie rock band made up three-band members main singer female and instrumented by a male and female. Their image is quirky and vintage too, as the girls wear patterned clothing and have the long hair with block fringe. And the guy has the scruffy look with long hair.

Artist Research Assignment - Mart =]

Visual Style and Image

Jenny and Jonny are very typically rock and roll 1950’s styled. This is shown by the leather jackets, oversized sun glasses. They use old retro looking cars and landscapes for their photo shoots that enhances the retro rock and roll feel of their visual style and image.

The artists on screen image is a tad hard to say as they haven’t got a existing music video but going off photos taken at their tour gigs the rock and roll look of the performance shots look very in keeping with the look they are trying to replicate from the 1950’s.

Jenny and Johnny’s music matches their visual style by being very bare basics with no computerised sounds or effects, their music is very strings based that shows the audience that they are confident with their musical ability as they don’t have to hide anything by putting in electronics sound effects. This is similar to music in the 1950’s where the music was that purely of the instruments and that the artist made there vibe and feel of music themselves and not on a computer, but as they were in the 1950’s not using a computer was quite easy....

Artist Research Assignment - Mart =]

Synergy and Marketing

Jenny and Johnny seem to be more targeted towards the female market as the majority of the products in their very limited merchandise shop on Jenny and Johnny’s official website shows me that they have a bigger female market share in their brand than males do. Out of the six apparel items that are available to purchase on the website only one of them are dedicated to males. This shows that they don’t expect to sell many pieces to the male gender so have limited that choice and expanded on the female’s product range.

The t-shirt for the male market is just a plain black t-shirt with a little Jenny and Johnny logo, as seen below:

For the females there are products such as handbags and pink t-shirts, as seen below: 

With keeping with their 1950’s theme Jenny and Johnny have released a Vinyl LP version of one of their albums. This shows that they don’t just cater for those that want to play their song on CD players but they appreciate the style and origins of their sub-genre and the look that they style themselves upon. The Vinyl LP cover can be seen below:

 

The front cover shows Jenny and Johnny lounging about on a street with the sun light from the top left hand corner bleaching the image so it has a red glow over it. This makes the picture stand out as a normal colour photo would look bland. The clothes that Jenny is wearing are of a quite retro look as the shades complement the high thigh dress well.

Jenny and Johnny use their record label (WMG) to promote and sell themselves by cameo appearing in several US TV shows such as ‘Gossip Girl’ which is produced by Warner Brothers TV, which is itself a sub company, from the conglomerate Warner Brothers. This is examples of synergy that is used to promote the bands brand of Jenny and Johnny which will itself drive the sales of their music and tour tickets.

Jenny and Johnny have an official website that is used to promote tours and new singles/albums as well as be used to host their online merchandise shop for fans to buy into their brand with branded t-shirts and bags. An official Facebook page is also used as promotional material for the duo along with the obligatory band MySpace page.  

http://jennyandjohnnymusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/JennyAndJohnny?sk=wall

http://www.myspace.com/jennyandjohnny

Artist Research Assignment - Mart =]

Image and Genre

Jenny and Johnny are a duo whose music is in the Alternative/Indie/Folk genre. Jenny and Johnny style themselves on the looks from the retro 1950’s era with a rock and roll ‘Elvis’ feel as a side order.  They both carry off a casual laid back approach that matches their clothes perfectly to create the whole feel of rock and roll even if there music isn’t that.

 A similar band like Jenny and Johnny is another band duo, Wye Oak.  Wye Oak play similar music and have a similar look to Jenny and Johnny. They are a male and female duo who seems to like unusual photos of them such as:

They dress in casual clothes but have that bit of rock and roll which they portray in the way they play their instruments, such as:

Jenny and Johnny have only in the last few years been a band together, before they joined up Jenny Lewis (the Jenny half of the duo!!!) was in a band called Rilo Kiley. Rilo Kiley’s style was very different to that of Jenny and Johnny’s. The styling was very much three geeks and a friend who’s a girl (not girlfriend!!), the ‘geeks’ of the group wore very stereotypical dress with matching hairstyles with Jenny Lewis was very much the ‘pin up’ of the group and was made to look that way from every angle, maybe too much effort was made in this area….

Johnathan Rice had before joining Jenny Lewis to form Jenny and Johnny a soloist who had had the same style for the majority of his career. His style is the typical folk/indie look with the long hair, shirts/t-shirts and jeans. The whole appearance of him looks like not much time and effort has been afforded to styling his looks. However the genre that he is in requires that kind of look so he pulls it off perfectly.

After Jenny and Johnny formed Jenny and Johnny, their looks were moulded into that the fans know today, the 1950’s, rock and roll style.   

Visual Style & Image - Beth

This is a research task we were asked to do on the visual style and image of our artist. Because our artist does not have a music video yet I chose to use press shots and pictures for my research.

Image
Some of the typical visual elements that I think signifies our artist is their clothing style. They are well known for their 50's vintage outfits and matching jackets which represents both their band and personal relationship.

 I also think the use of specific colours signifies them. Blue, black and red seem to be reccurring colours in most of their press shots, incorporated into their clothing and the setting around them.


Their style also seems to be very all american with a country/folk style sometimes used.


Visual Style
From the research I have done using music videos from Jenny&Johnny's former bands I think they would use editing in their music videos to cut between performance and narrative scenes. I think this because most alternative bands use both of these things in their music videos and Jenny&Johnny use them in their music videos from their former bands (links below)
Link to Rilo Kiley - Silver Lining Music Video
Link to Johnathan Rice - We're All Stuck Out In The Desert
I also think that they would use alot of hand held camera shots, almost like a home video. I think this because it would fit with their DIY music style image and it is used in the Johnathant Rice video (link above.)

Busking License - GRANTED =]

Following on from my email to Stewart Thornhill, permisson has been granted and a location suggested for our filming. Here is the response I recieved:


Mart

Dear Martin,

I don’t think that you need to request busking permits as strictly speaking you’re not busking. As far as a suitable location, I would recommend using Chapel Bar beyond the bars outside seating areas and close to the public seats. It is an official busking pitch but rarely used so you will not get any hassle there from buskers wanting to perform there at the same time. You would get problems using other busking pitches as they are more popular.

If you do get approached by our community protection officers, you can show them this email as proof of permission being granted.

Kind Regards,

Stewart Thornhill