Theory – 1bMusic Video Analysis

EXAM QUESTIONS:“The concept of genre is useful to audiences and film companies.” Discuss with reference to your own coursework productions. (GENRE)

Representation of particular social groups in the media often relies on the use of stereotypes. Discuss this with reference to your own productions. (REPRESENTATION)

“Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives”. Explain how you used conventional and/or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces. (NARRATIVE)

“Audience readings of media texts are affected by variables such as age, gender, social status and social context.” How might different audience members interpret one of your practical productions? (AUDIENCE)

Different media texts utilise their own specific ‘language’ to convey meaning to their audiences. With reference to one of your own productions, explain how you used the medium specific language to convey meaning. (MEDIA LANGUAGE)

Media Language

TASK 1:• The genre of music videos determines the codes

and conventions used in a video. Create a chart that looks at 5 different genres that analyses the media language of the videos. Think about what you learnt from the TV drama exam for the headings – these are CODES AND CONVENTIONS;

• Example chart – obviously more detail needed!Video Mise en scene Sound Editing Camera AnglesAluna George - Just A Touch

Black and whiteWarehouse

Song Special effectsCutting

Close upsWide angles

Ed Sheeran – The A Team

Audio-Visual Technical Codes for Music Video:

Camera Shots: jumping directly between long shots, close ups and extreme close ups. Primarily the close up on the singer’s face is the main generic convention for music videos. Also the extreme close up on the lips for lip synching.

Camera Movement: whip pans, fast dolly track shots and fast overhead crane shots to follow the running, walking or dancing of performers. Also fast vertical tilts and horizontal pans.

Editing: various terms: jump cutting, MTV style editing or montage editing. Creating the visually de-centred experience of ‘jumping’ from location to person to instrument without any normal narrative continuity. Instead it is often the beat or the rhythm of the track which provides the organising principle for editing movement. The editing moves so fast it creates the need for viewing ‘repeatedly’. There are exceptions though. Some ‘continuity editing’ used such as atmospheric ‘dissolve shots’ such as in Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compare to You’

Post-production digital effects: ‘colourisation’ ‘slow motion’ etc. Special effects are now conventional for music videos. Please look out for other innovative effects.

Lighting: Expressive lighting a key feature of music videos. Extreme artificial light to create the ‘bleaching’ effect on pop stars faces (making them seem ageless). Also the use of switching from colour to black & white or sepia to indicate a shift from chorus to verse. Also lighting effects such as strobes or flashing needs to be identified. This obviously links into the use of CGI in dance music videos to enhance the atmosphere.

Mise-en-scene: look for the overall artistic concept in a video. Is there a theme?. Does the video’s mise en scene follow the need for authenticity in performance videos by using the concert hall or rehearsal studio setting. Or is there an intentional ‘parodic’ setting to exaggerate star image?

THEORY

Andrew Goodwin Music videos have certain codes and conventionsWhich of these are codes (make something recognisably ‘a music video’), and which are conventions?

Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

NarrativeTASK 2:

• Music videos have elements of performance as well as narrative elements. Find 5 different music videos that are different and create a presentation that you will deliver to a small group of people. Use tubechop to cut the video so that we only see the smaller clips. Please pick videos that are interesting and are slightly different. If you do mainstream videos you won’t get any interesting ideas!

• Example videos:– Ed Sheeran / The A Team – completely narrative based music video– The Verve / Bitter Sweet Symphony – performance based narrative– Justin Timberlake / Mirrors – performance and narrative based– Fat Boy Slim / Weapon of Choice – performance based video

Representation

TASK 3:

• Music videos represent artists / bands in various ways dependant on the genre. Find 5 music videos that represent music artists differently. Make a poster per genre on the representation using lots of different images from the video to discuss the representation of the artists/bands.– What clothes to people wear?– Are there any stereotypes that fit a certain genre? If so what are

they?– How are men/women represented in videos? Could you link to

camera angles, editing?

Feminism v Masculinity

Shuker - The representation of women in music videos, and the nature of the gaze (usually constructed as male) of the viewer of such textsVersallis – representation in music video is not monolithic, that progressive videos, ones that run against the grain, also exist.Versallis – music videos often reflect cultural stereotypes but in the majority they exaggerate them.Versallis – music videos reflect gender stereotypes. There are elements that ‘men act and women appear’ Berger

Laura Mulvey

Images of women are made for a heterosexual male audience and the audience must look at the characters with this perspective.

Has this been engrained in the way that we look at things?

IdeologyLaughey – Any given ideology contains a common set of values, beliefs and ideas. These common values, beliefs and ideas limit the range of acceptable meanings and representations that an ideology can accomodate. DIVERSITY is a dirty word.

Ideology as a concept however does have weaknesses as it is a rigid concept that is based on the ruling classes governing the weak.

Hall and HegemonyHegemony – a dominant ideology that highlights the relationship between the ruling and the ruled.

Hall – questions does the media ever encode images with anything other than the conventional representations that do little to unsettle existing power structures in societies?

HALL:Dominant code – consumers adopt a preferred reading of representationsNegotiated code – accepts some aspects of the media representationsOppositional code – decode the representations in ways that were not intended

Genre

• TASK 4:

• Pick one music video and do a close analysis of the video using theory (this will be taught during a lesson). Try to pick a genre that you will eventually use. You will need to look at all the areas studied so far. The close analysis can be completed on a PowerPoint/Keynote and then made into a movie.

Robert Stam

He suggests genre is hard to define, doesn’t really exist and is just a concept made up by theorists and critics.

Do you agree?

Give examples from your work that suggests that genre either IS or ISN’T easy to define

Rick AltmanHe says that the way we define a genre is by two main things:

• Semantic Elements (eg signs such as knives, blood, dark colours, eerie music). He thinks these elements are easier for audiences to recognise and identify

• Syntactic Elements (includes THEMES such as fear, revenge, rage as well as plots such as PLOTS such as group go on trip, one by one they die, last girl survives and kills killer) He thinks these elements are more subtle and harder to recognise.

Identify semantic and syntactic elements in your video that might help audiences identify the genre of your film / music video

Andrew Goodwin

Thinks that music videos follow the following conventions:

• Conventions depend on the genre of the music• Star persona is important and companies use close ups to sell

them to the audience• Voyeuristic images are used to attract an audience• They often contain intertextual references to other media• There is a link between the lyrics and the visuals• There is a link between the visuals and the music / pace etc

How can we apply this theory to your video?

Extra Theories for a JUICY response

• KNIGHT – argues that making sense of texts in genres is an active process of creating meaning

• Duff – believes that genre is evolving overtime, and that the conventions are a result of agreements between author and reader

• Sonia Livingston – different genres specifiy different contracts to be negotiated between the text and the reader

• Nick Abercrombie – says that media producers should stick to using the typical conventions in a music video or film, as audiences are guaranteed to like them and identify with them easily

Audience

• Separate task; Audience Research• TASK EIGHT• Deadline Monday 15th July