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Music video research

+Defining music video

Andrew Goodwin defines a good promo video as;

“A clip that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which that music is made visual, either in new ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations.”

+Wikipedia detention of music videos

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Music videos use a wide range of styles of contemporary video making techniques, including animation, live action filming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation, music, and live action. Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song's lyrics, while others take a more thematic approach. Other music videos may be merely a filmed version of the song's live performance.

+Billy Zaidi’s definition

A good music video is one which brings to life the lyrics and/or music of a song released as a single to promote both the release of an album and the artist who has recorded it.

Although they can be seen as just an advert, the best videos embrace the best of postmodern culture by combining dynamic performance and stylish visual images with a themed concept which enhances the target audience’s enjoyment and understanding of the song, and the genre or subculture that spawned it.

+Pete Fraser; Technical

There are 3 types of music videos

Illustration – the most simple type that just visualise the lyrics

Amplification – metaphorically develop the lyrics into a theme or concept

Disjuncture – abstract videos with no clear link to the song

+Pete Fraser- technical

Editing to the beat

Montage editing

Speed – editing, camera movement etc

Performance

Lighting and colour

Mise-en-scene

Montage editing and fast cutting creates a visual decentred experience which is needed for s music video. The images occasionally moving so fast that it’s impossible to understand on the first viewing which needs to be viewed several times.

+Other critical perspectives

Most consumers do not regard the promo video as a mere commercial.

Aufderheide (1986) describes the connection of viewer to video as having little to do with “cash or commodities” – they “cross the consumers’ gaze as a series of mood states. They trigger nostalgia, regret, anxiety, dread, envy, pity, titillation – attitudes at one remove from the primal expression such as passion, ecstasy and rage. The moods often express an incompletion, an instability, a searching for location. In music videos those feelings are carried on flights of whimsy...”

Abt (1987) states that directors of videos “strive to make their products as exciting as the music. In the struggle to establish and maintain a following, artists utilise any number of techniques to appear exotic, powerful, tough, sexy, cool, unique.”

+3 main types of promo videos

Performance – the most common type, with artist performing to enthusiastic fans, to convey a sense of in-concert experience.

Gow (1992) suggests that this is to reinforce the message that the soundtrack – the music – is still “the most important element.”

Narrative – a video may tell any kind of story, but the most common narrative mode is the love story, often with the action dominated by males and females who passively react or wait for something to happen (Schwichtenburg 1992)

Conceptual videos rely on poetic form, the metaphor They do not tell a story in linear fashion but create a mood, a feeling to be evoked in the viewing experience (Firth 1988). They contain the possibility for repeated viewings as the metaphor is interpreted by the individual viewer.

+Synaesthesia

This describes the process where you hear a piece of music and visualise it in your mind’s eye.

This might be based on your own personal experiences .

This might be based on your own creative interpretation of the song.

Many music video directors use this synesthetic process to come up with ideas [or just have great concepts for a video and wait for the right song to come along.

+Grain of voice

Roland barthes wrote about the role of the singer in modern music.

The theory of grain of voice sees the singing voice as a more expressive instrument, which is personal it can also seen as unique even to the singer

The voice of a song may trademark work hand in hand with the star image

In terms of your work, this theory helps explain why the singer is often seen as the most important member in a band, and in the editing process gets more close-ups and screen time

+Star image and meta-narrative

As we live in increasingly image-obsessed times, many artists work very hard on the way they represent themselves in terms of star image which invariably involves sex appeal or being a ‘cool’ style icon.

The music business relies on the relatively few big names to fund its activities; it usually fails to connect with popular audiences – only about 1 in 10 acts put out by the music industry actually makes any money. Therefore, what we can describe as the meta-narrative of the star image will have an important part to play in the role of a music video production process. This helps explain why many artists constantly update their ’look’ so they stay in the public eye

Meta- narrative is a term that describes the development of a star image over time, the stories that surround a particular artist.

+Dancing in the distraction factory

Cultural critics have viewed music videos in a variety of different ways, which reflects how diverse and problematic they can be to define as an art-form or media text:

* Mercer looks at them as a kind of cinematic genre* Fry and Fry view them in terms of adverts* Fiske as a new form of television as classic postmodern texts* Walker sees them as visual art* Lewis sees them merely in terms of shopping mall culture* Marcus views them as semiotic pornography

+Sound and vision; a music video reader

Music videos are the ultimate expression of various trends in modern culture coming together:

* They blur the distinction between high art (opera, art...) and popular culture (film, TV, pop music, comics...) 

* They borrow heavily from other cultural texts in a postmodern way by taking different genre elements of fashion/ musical style and fusing them together

* Commodification – this refers to the way that music is not just produced for its own sake, because people want to make music, but as a commodity or product that can be packaged and sold 

* textual ‘schizophrenia’ which refers to the way that music videos jump from one idea or image to another – as long as they look cool, that’s all that matters... 

* the postmodern disappearance of reality – people can grow wings or turn into cartoons or whatever – as long as they look cool, that’s all that matters... 

* the erosion of authenticity.

+Authenticity

Lawrence Grossberg uses the phrase “the ideology of authenticity.”

Music can be considered at its most authentic when people are playing instruments or singing live. In music videos, artists are just performers, lip-syncing to songs or miming along to the pre-recorded music.

As viewers, we know the musicians are not actually performing, but go along with this inauthentic authenticity because we are more concerned with the visual spectacle rather than whether it is ‘real’

Music video are also criticised because they limit the imaginative freedom of fans by taking away the listener’s freedom to interpret a song how they like, by imposing a visual or even narrative interpretation of the song upon them.

+Pop-up video

This show ran out music video channel VH1 for years and showed promo videos with pop up displays giving background information on a range of topics like release date, bloopers, trivia and technical aspects regarding the production process.

In other words, the pop ups deconstructed the videos to reveal how they were made, adding an extra level of pleasure for the audience beyond just watching the video itself.

+Suzy Davis interview; MediaMagazine

The interview is useful due to the fact that Davis talks about the importance of developing an appropriate concept for a promo video. Davis gives the advice “Keep it simple, avoiding complicated narrative”.

Davis highlights, the importance of editing as a key technical element which enhances the songs beat and overall structure. Davis is also gives useful insightful into production practices employed by real media professionals especially if the shots aren’t great.

Use lighting to create simple effects in camera. Color grading tool can be applied to every shot. You can drop in flash frames for effect. You can link two boring looking shots more interestingly by flipping one upside down or creating some kind of interesting movement. Use the motion tool to create moves that aren't really there.