Interesting location (not always necessary) e.g Beyonce - Single Ladies was a set white background, and the video is popular and well known world wide.
Good message - e.g. something younger listeners can look up to
Choreography - Dancing and movement (again like 'single ladies')
Image/song/music should all match
Strong narrative - so the point can be clearly made
Fast edits - to keep up the fast pace and make it interesting
Originality - e.g. Ed Sheeran's 'You need me, I don't need you' includes sign language
Tempo - so the music stands out to the viewer
Attractive people - so the video stands out
Repeated central image - to link everything together
Andrew Goodwin wrote book called 'Danicng in the Distraction Factory' 1993.
In my previous post about structure of music video, I have mentioned a Todorov theory and his idea about narrative structure - 'normality-problem-resolution'. Goodwin argues that this very traditional pattern can not refer to a pop videos. He backup his statement with 3 main points:
pop video are build around song which more often does not carry to any extend a narrative structure
in pop video character and narrator is played by singer
singier looks directly into camera. it is an visible relationship between singer and audience which has to create a feeling that an audience is taking a part in music video
One of the most common feature on which music video relay is repetition. Often as an audience we get the same image in choruses while during line we get 'strory'. There is also a close connection between some part or rhythms of other song which is called intertextuality.
There are 3 types of relationship between songs and video
Ilustration
Amplication
Disjuncture
There is an example of a illustration video : most of the lyrics is shows by different images.
' I gotta feeling that tonight's gonna be off good night:
We see peeople getting ready to party, lots of dancing, very positive feeling.
This an example of amplification, the video doesn't narrate the video but doesn't contradict the lyrics, as she sings " When I see you cry it makes me cry" the audience are shown the guy is distressed and the artist smiles. The audience are aware of the relationship which goes along with the lyrics.
This is a perfect example of disjuncture video.
James Blunt is singing :
'You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true. I saw your face in a crowded place, And I don't know what to do, 'Cause I'll never be with you.'
and we see him taking out from pocket different things which does not relate to a lyrics.
A music video is used to promote the Artist. It does this in different ways:
It promotes the image of the Artist, to get noticed by appearance and by personality and taste.
Promotes the Artist's song, so that if a viewer watches it and likes the song, they will be persuaded to listen to their other songs. (Potentially helps financially so that people would buy their songs either by purchasing their single or album physically or online. However this conflicts with illegal downloading.)
When the music video is played (either on tv, online or on mobiles) it entertains the viewer, and gives back to the fans who are interested in their music.
It is used to get more fans, and with videos played on various sites such as youtube or on their own website, it can be seen all over the world so different countries would get to see more of that Artist.
It helps promote the Artist's music concerts, as it gives people the visual image of the Artist, and give the impression of how they would be live and encourage people to buy concert tickets and merchandise.
This is the copyright email I sent to 679 record company for the possible song I wanted to do for my music video. I asked to use permission for a few 'Marina and the Diamonds' songs, as I was indecisive. If I had to chose one, I would have probably used 'Radioactive'. The reason why I chose this song is because I thought it was quite upbeat and had quirky use of instruments which would work well with editing.
As all representation are constructed, the image of an artist is planned with incredible precision ; clothes, hair style, location, body language. This is all made to catch the audience attention. Moreover with clear 'image' it is easier to associate artist with particular type of music, and fulfill audience's expectations. However, we have to keep in mind that as an audience we can interpret each representation in different way; depending on our cultural references and understanding.
Here, are some example to proof that theory of Laura Murley gender representation actually is very common.
Snoop Dogg in this video is in the centre of all women's attention.They are dancing in very promiscious way while he is walking towards camera. Woman want to get him by using their bodies and non verbal body language, which clearly says that they want to have a play with him. But Snoop Dogg does not seem very intresting. Of course he is, but becuase there is so many girl around him, he does not bother and care to make any efford to get their attention. As an audience we see this video from Snoop Dogg perspective - a male perspective. Again lots of use of body parts- dismembered. Woman plays role as an object rather than person, especially at the same level as he is. Snoop Dogg shows off his wealth by clothes and jewellery; suits, chains, ear rings, glasses. This props emphasises ideal that he can have everything what he wants to have.
And again, as an audience we see whole video from male perspective. Woman don't say anything. They are there for entertainment. It seems to be everyman dream- fast car, boat, island, nice clothes, big houses, parties and lots of woman around. If you have money - you can have everything. Woman are happy, sexy and don't care about anything about their look and good time.
I get the feeling of an ideal : it does not matter who you are, it is important what you have\ own (?).
Throughout this representation man want to shows their status in the society and emphasises the idea of male dominace-woman does have a right to say anything, she has to do what man wants her to do.
However, Lady Gaga in her video ' Alejandro', shows representatin which completely differ from these above two.
Lady Gaga seems to be a Queen and has her own army of half naked soldiers or lovers. She emphasises a representation of man - as an sexual object by a high hells on mans foot. This give us as an audience idea that here the roles of an active male and passive female switched. Now woman has power over man, a man has to do want she said. Of course we see this video from Lady Gaga's perspectives-female. In my opinion there is a very intresting thing; even she is only in underwear, it does not complements her body. Futhermore, man body plays more important part in this section. They are more eye-catch. Man are well build, masculine. There is lots of focus on their torso, legs, bum. Also Lady Gaga keep her in power through whips and leather stripes which has a kind of agressive and violence connotation.
In this case, Laura Murley's theory does not fulfull itself. There is a role swith on male and female role, which is very good. It helps to break this representation of male gaze.
Representation is one of the most important aspect in both film and music video. It consists many parts like
gendre, age, ethnicty, place, sex etc.
Laura Mulvey looks closely at gendre representation and this is what she said:
'In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determing male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is style accordingly'
Other words, there is still a sexual inequality in the world, especially in the world o media. The pleasure in looking has been split between male as they are looking, and female who must looks good for them. Women has to fulfill, man's ideal model and promote her image as an 'object' and 'extras'. They are misuse to attract audience (what most of the time is man) through their body/clothes. Women with less clothes on looks more attractive and is an sexual object.
Most of the hip-hop and r'n'b type of music are carrying out this kind of representation.
Dizzee Rascal video 'Holiday' is a really goog examples of dismembrance of women as just legs, bodies etc. All women are in bikinis and are really young. There is a double standard as men are dressed up.Goddie eyeing up women as she enter. We also never hear a female voice which is very typical voice. Women are use to looks good and hot. To catch man's eye.
Lots of body shots. Women with minimized number of clothes, man dress up; Dizzee in white suit to show off his wealth. There are 2 shots with old man and young women- part of her body. This shows typical sexists stereotype. Men can be old and ugly but with money they can have a young and beautiful girl.
However, Missy Elliott in video 'The Rain' is breaking this representation.
She uses a fish eye + lots of high angles to make her look bigger than she actually is. She also wears a kind of black bag which is pumped up with an air from underneath, which make her look extra big. This shows that even within hip-hop or r'n'b genre, there are some artist who wants to overcome that kind of image.
Carol Vernallis has written a book of media lanuage analysis called: Experiencing Music Video:Aesthetic and Cultural Context (2004).
She studied the 4 concept which relates to the way the music video is constructed.
Narrative
Editing
Camera movement and Framing
Diegesis
However I am only going to look more closely on editing and camera movement&framing. Throughtout her observation she concluded that these 2 key concepts come much more often than in film. Editing goes with the rhythms of the music. Moreover it is made to be so obvious, visible- disjuncture- which made it more entertaintment. There is lots of jumps cut. The rules of 'continuity' editing is broken in order to draw attention.
For the cmaerwarok the master shot often called a base track is frequently used to give a video a structure. Camera may move in time with the music.
When I wrote in google 'Carol Verballis theory' this is what I found
What does she say about editing?
She says that
Editing may match the musical phrases or the beat
The video may break or disrupt many of the ‘rules’ of continuity editing – this is a clear convention of music video editing.
Editing may become ‘foregrounded – the edits may be really obvious, to draw attentionto themselves as opposed to invisible, continuity editing
For example, you may see:
Jump cuts
Breaks of the 30 degree rule
Breaks of the 180 degree rule
Cutting against the movement
Cutting within the lyrics
Fancy edits or cuts
Extreme jumps in time and space
Extreme changes in pace
Juxtaposed frames
Graphic matches
A style of editing that runs through the video and is distinctive to that video
You may not see:
Smooth transitions
Matches on action
An even pace throughout
What does she say about Camera Movement and Framing?
She says that
When it comes to shot types, extremes are very common.
The style of framing and movement may run through the video and is distinctive to that video
The camera may move in time with the music
The camera may move on the lyrics
The master shot (or other establishing shots) is used frequently, as are close-ups
At 1.16-1.21 There is a jump cuts while she is walking on the desert towards the camera.
Whole music video has been based on the special effects to draw attention on the audience and make it more entertainment. For example a jelly bear, or sticks which changed into snakes. Lots of minimising of the main character to create a sense of 'Alice in Wonderland'. Which helps to creata a feeling of memories, ideal time of childhood, dreaming.
Most of the music video have not a narrative. However there is a key differences between a narrative in the music video and narrative in the movie.
Music Video:
time is compressed (whole 'life' is shows in 4 min)
shippets
simple events to tell the story
minimal amount of characters
story is narrated simply
lots of performance
dis-continous editing- jumps from the shot to shot
while
Film Video: Propp/Tadorox theory
Normality -2 central characters lovers or hero/villan
Problem- distruption to normallity
Quest to overcome distruption
Return to a changed normality
Throughout different music video, I could argue that some of them are carrying to the some extrend, the film structure. However it is increbile impotant to remeber that music video does not have a resulution.
My As-A2 summer video was a complete defeat, however it got us on how we should make the video and at least we know what we really need to do and how to do it.
Our mistakes that will NOTbe repeated this year:
something happened to our song and at the end the video went right with the music, but towards the end it got a bit messed up and didn't match and it looks completely WRONG. whatever it was-it won't be like that this year. That was just a practice and I'm happy we made it although we had short amount of time. now we'll have more time and we'll be able to work on every detail.
costume, well of course we didn't get ready for this and we didn't have a proper costume and setting, that's understandable :D but this year I will really think about the Mise en Scene !
acting/ singing. well yeah, the acting was bad and we didn't know the lyrics so we ended up reading from the sheet which looked really bad. So this year, we need to make sure we have some who's comfortable in front of camera :)
lipsync, this year the lip sing will be absolutely perfect with the lyrics, unlike last year ;D
The digipack we made before summer is not quite a successful one, but I at least we learned how to make it. I made my own one because none of you pictures were good enough to be on the digipack so I used the image of the examples. I tried to link the font to the image. I decided that I'll put 'many thanks' on the side, which is what artists usually do and I always like reading it.
I also had a look at some CD I have at home, most of them are mini booklets with lyrics and so on, but the best thing about buying a CD is the booklet, I love them! I love reading the lyrics, seeing the pictures that are on it, so I'm guessing that for our digipack I will wanna do similar thing.
“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking had been split between active male and passive female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly.”
-Laura Mulvey, 1992.
And sadly, yes she’s true. It seems that music videos are changing, and through simplistic clips, where legs were too controversial to show because of the dance moves (Elvis Presley)
So in 50’s where this type of music video would be shown, if would be cropped to mid shot, so that legs weren't shown as it was seen as too controversial.
...to where hardly anything is covered (RnB, POP artists such as Ciara, Rihanna).
Lady Gaga in Telephone
Representation of women .
Women are represented as being an ‘objects’ and that’s what Mulvey means by ‘passive female’, where women are being looked at and judged based on their appearance. If you look at Dizzee Rascal’s holiday...
Women are represented as ‘objets’, there is a mid shot but we don’t even see her face because all the attention is brought to her body.
The less is better? Well, its summer so how come men in the video are dressed up and women are half naked?
There are examples that do not follow Mulvey's rule, for example Missy Eliot. In the video, her costume makes outlines her shapes, and makes her look ever more bigger. It's almost like she's not ashamed of her body, and exaggerates it ever more. Here, it's like women are active, and man are more passive. The use of fish eye lens make her face and lips look even more 'deformed' and she seems to do this on purpose. When she's dancing, we see a male dancers behind her, they look attractive and their costume is looking attractive, so again- we see male as 'passive' because in this case they are the ones who are being looked at. You go Missy !
Carol Vernallis, after closely studying music vieos, discovered that there is a big difference between music clips and film.
-editing in music clips is rhythmic, usually cut to the beat. I’ve talked about it in previous posts; if the song is slow the editing is likely to be slower that in a fast, upbeat one. Let’s check:
-I’ve counted about 20 different shots in 10 seconds in fast song (System of a Down- Chop Suey!)
-and only 3 in 10 secs of in a slow song! So the shots are longer and in slow motion. (Song: System of a Down- Lonely Day)
-music videos break the rule of ‘continuity’ editing. So we don’t see everything, the time is compressed so we have to show only the most important and interesting parts.
-use of jump cuts. Again, the time is compressed and to shorten the time jump cuts are often used to skip the time. I agree with Vernallis, showing everyting in 3 minute music video would be completely boring. In music video, we should only see the best bits! I’ve found an example of the video that uses jump cuts, it might not be a very good one but I can’t think of anything else at the moment.
In this example, the use of jump cut not only cuts the time, but fits in with the music and makes it more interesting for the audience, especially teenagers who need to me constantly engaged, and fast editing is a good way to keep them interested. We see the jump cut from 0:44 to 0:46, where each member of the band gets into a car. instead of showing how they actually get it, we only see cuts between how they're in the car. (Good Charlotte- I just Wanna Live)
-camera moves in time with music. I’ve already seen some examples of it.
Wretch 32 ft Example- Unorthodox. Especially the beginning, we can clearly see that the camera moves with the music. (I think it’s mostly in the beginning. )
There is usually a base track, frequently used throughout the video, to give it a clear structure. So in Unorthodox, this is the base track: (so whatever happens in the video and wherever they go, the editing jumps to this base track which doesn’t change).
In one of our media lessons, we discussed what makes a good music clip. We came to a conclusion that:
-rhythm editing.
So baisically that the editing matches the song/beat. If the song’s fast, upbeat, ‘happy’, energetic it’s good to have a fast editing, a lot going on, quick+ many different shots and so on. In a slow or sad song it’s better if the editing is slower, longer shots.
-attractive artist.
Come on, no one would be interested in watching a music video is there aren’t any fit people. Unless it’s like a parody, or a joke. Or fits the song. So like Katy Perry’s Last Friday night:
Or Pink’s raise your glass:
But these have a purpose that matches the song or the story line.
-interesting location.
It also depends what the target audience it, different age groups might find different locations interesting for example most of the teenagers would find Black Eyed Peas’ I gotta a feeling interesting. Location, costumes etc appeal to them and most of them find the video exciting.
-Good message
I believe that videos that try to tell us something, not directly but through things in it.
-choreography.
And i don’t just mean dancing. Movement, the way the actors/band/artist act, move and sing.
And dancing too : ) if you wanna put dance routine into a music video, make sure it doesn't suck.
This is a good example of fantastic choreography and dance routine:
-repeated central image.
So i know that during vides artists change 100 times and are in 101 different locations, but its good to have like one, central point where the image repeats from time to time to make the structure of the video more stable for the audience .
It’s good to be back on my blogging duty! So to start, over the summer I’ve been watching and analysing music videos from different genres of music.
Simple but effective. Doesn’t need to have a narrative, we don’t know what the story is. Our attention is brought to one guy dancing throughout the video. Different shots are applied, to make the video interesting. No fast editing, so it goes right with the song.
So it made me think that music video’s not a movie and doesn’t have to tell a story (it still can thought). I think this video is particularly unique because it’s effective. It’s got good choreography, is simple but good- black and white, strong use of lighting vs costume so white lighting (background)- black costume and vice versa.
I sent couples of e-mail about copyright permission.
I am very happy because I have manage to received one answer for my e-mail.
I received it from the Ministry of Sound which produced song Yasmine-Finish Line
In June after our exam, on the media lesson we had to create a task which meant to prepare us for an A2 year; we had to create a music video.
For me it was really random task, I did not what to do when teacher gave my group a song 'Respect'. We had to use 4 or 5 different shots. We had only a one lesson to finish this task. We did not think about location, about style, about anything. We just went into one of the free computer rooms, placed a camera and starting to take footage. We could not decide who is going to sing or even what we should do. We asked other student to help us with singing, but after 5 minutes we decided to do it only within our group. Reem was a lead singer, I was in chorus. While she was singing I was dancing and having lots of fun. After, when we actually done this task, we realised that we missed lots of opportunities to make our video look much better.
We could use different location to make different shots looks more distinguish. I think that for the first time our lip sync was not bad as it could be. For a little amount of time, we managed to learn lyrics. We looked quite confidence in front of camera.
I learnt that we should take one footage for a whole song, rather than stopping between like in the Thriller opening. However, we have to take many more footage to create a variety of different shots and angles to make music video interesting.
In terms of editing, there is a big difference between a film and music video. We have to put 'marker' using M in the particular moments of each footage. This will help us to make sure that the music matches singing. Moreover if we decided to put marker with each beat eg. 1-2-3 and marker-1-2-3 and marker until end, it will make our music video livelier.
