Concept Based Music Video

A concept music video is abstract, and is neither concept or performance. It often starts from an idea or theme the music video director has come up with. It normally doesn’t relate to the song lyrics however may have an underlying relationship or meaning with them. A concept could be arty or involve other art forms to be abstract and make a statement and impact to the audience however the video is meant to create a mood, a feeling to be evoked in the viewing experience.

This video is concept and performance based as they are using artistic features and also show the band performing. Also Stop motion is used to create moving animation for the illistration. The video has performance based aspects in it as the instruments are an important part of the whole band.

 

Narrative Music Video

A narrative music video is one which uses a story line; this story could relate directly to the lyrics or to just an idea of the song. Lots of these kinds of music videos use the artists as the characters. This helps to advertise the artist’s image and it can also promote them as a particular stereotype, such as being the hero. The use of editing can help to encourage the audience to watch the video to the end to find out what happens to the characters. This makes the music video like a short film. Often theses will contain a love story often with action dominated by males and females who passively react or wait for something to happen.

Rihannas’s Music video ‘Man down’ is an example of a narrative based music video

 

This video is a typical example of a Narrative based music video that follows all the conventions especially the idea of a love story and being action dominated from the very beggining of the music video, the fact that there is no music present in the beggining of the video also gives away that the video is a narrative based music video.

Performance Music Video

A performance video is one where the video consists of the band/artist performing to an audience or specifically to a camera. It can work effectively because the audience can feel they are experiencing a live performance and immerses them into the video. This can encourage them to see the band live or buy the song. Usually performance based music video’s tend to work well with indie and rock bands because they play instruments and tend to usually start with gigs. An example of a performance-based music video is Beyonce’s Single Ladies

The video consists of  various elements which give the impression  that it is a performance  based music video the main one being the dance performance with lip syncing by Beyonce and her co-dancers, also the lighting used in the video; the spot lights connote a stage performance.

Dancing in the distraction factory

Dancing in the distraction factory is a textbook about music videos and popular culture for degree level students written by Andrew Goodwin. I have used this for secondary research because I think it will give me some higher level information about music videos and also many different critics perspectives about them.

There are many different critics that have viewed a range of music videos in different ways so that they can clearly see how various and challenging they can be as either an art form or media text.

I have stated below some quotes from the book that stood out to me as being what  the critics really think when it comes to music videos.

• Mercer says that he looks at them as a ‘kind of cinematic genre’.
• Fry says that he views them ‘in terms of adverts’.
• Fiske believes them to be ‘a new form of television as classic postmodern texts’.
• Walker however see them as ‘modern art’.
• Lewis only sees them in terms of ‘shopping mall culture’.
• Marcus believes them to be ‘semiotic pornography’.

I think the overall impression that this book has given me is that it is very hard to say what specifically is a music video. For every music video there is criticism but also a counter argument as there is for everything in the world today due to people being different and therefore having varying opinions.

An example of this is, When MTV got the blame ‘for today’s society’s short attention span and their obsession with image’. However, the counter-argument for this is that this programme also helped young black artists like Michael Jackson to break out and become global superstars. Therefore all in all there are many different reasons to be grateful to MTV.

Meta – narrative and star persona – This is the transformation of stars throughout their life and career and also how they skillfully change themselves from just any ordinary singer into a marketable product which is through the music video that they create and the star persona they produce and promote. Some examples of these are: Madonna who was originally labelled as a sex symbol and now recently viewed as a role model to all women. Kyle Minogue who was once viewed as an innocent frizzy haired soap star and now seen as a ‘hot sex siren’ 

‘Sound and Vision: A music video reader’

 

Sound and vision: a music video reader is textbook aimed for A level media students by Simon Frith. This is why I have read it and have chosen to use it for some of my secondary research. I believe this book is an excellent source of secondary research as it will help me have an understanding of what is put together in order to create an immersive and realistic music video.

Music videos are said to be the ‘ultimate expression of various trends in modern culture coming together’ A few examples of what music video generally include are :

• Many music videos merge the different between high art which is Opera, Art etc and popular culture which is film, TV, Pop music etc.
• Generally some music videos  make use of aspects from other cultural texts in a post modern way so they will take fashion and musical style and will combine them together to create something different.
• Commodification – This is where the music isn’t made purely for the music however, it is made as a commodity or product that can be sold to create money and profit.
• Textual ‘schizophrenia’ – This refers to when a music video jumps from one scene to another and not necessarily making sense. However if its looks good it doesn’t really matter.
• The postmodern disappearance of reality – This is where music videos again do not really make sense and anything can happen for example: people can fly or merge into cartoons.
• The erosion of authenticity – This is where the realisticness has deteriorated within years. Lawrence Grossberg believes in the phrase “the ideology of authenticity”. Music can be seen as authentic when it is a live performance or are simply playing an instrument. However, nowadays in music videos the artists are lip syncing to pre-recorded songs. The bad thing is that us as viewers are not concerned that the artists are not actually performing and are only bothered about the visual spectacle whether it is inauthentic

The major thing that is affected by the development of the music video is the changed way that audiences now relate to the music, this is mainly because the music is recently less significant than the video itself. This is because music videos have now made an ‘image’ for themselves, which can be seen as a bad thing due to some artists having a poor image. This could create bad publicity for those certain artists just because of their looks.

History of Music videos

Previously, music videos where known and used primarily as a marketing device, used to promote the song and weren’t always the whole song, but just a small clip to advertise the track. Music videos can be traced back very far, though it wasn’t until the 1980’s that they become more linked with the track, an accompaniment to be sold together, and this was done with the help of MTV and VH1.  MTV helped so much in populating music videos that around the world music videos where named and known as MTV’s, which was later shorted to just MV’s.

Music videos can be traced back as far as the 19^th century. A specific example being in 1984, Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas to produce a video to accompany their song ‘The Little Lost Child’. They also hired several performers, and with the help of Thomas they where able to project still images onto a screen at the same time as live performances. This is known to be the first ever music video made, simple as it was in comparison to the modern day production.

In the 1920’s Warner Bro’s cottoned onto this idea, and began to produce short musical films, almost like a music video, these where between 5 and 10 minutes long.

As decades went on the music video adapted. In the 1930’s animation artist Max Fleischer introduced the idea of a cartoon and story accompanying a music track or song, which where then later used in Disney productions.

As time began to reach the late 1900’s the use of music video became a lot more commercialized and used. Music videos became a significant role in advertising and selling the track and by the 1970’s music videos had spread to British TV and programs such as the famous top of the pops came about.

In 1981, the U.S music channel MTV was launched, allowing 24-hour access to music videos. The channel played a key part in popular music marketing with promoting mainstream artisst. During this time period the use of music videos and their popularity rocketed featuring acting, editing and clever visual effects. All this allowed directors and acts to expand genres and new styles and ideas. At this time, almost all music videos featured the artists themselves, it was very rare not too. After this new rage the popularity of music videos began to rise and fall before critics began to attack almost everything music videos represent and how the artists chose to be represented.

In the current modern day life, there are numerous music video stations. Technological convergence plays a huge role in the popularity of music videos and how they are able to spread and advertise rapidly as now we can watch music videos almost anywhere; iphones, blackberry’s, YouTube, iPods, iPads, laptops, television, projectors and so on. Not only can we watch more music videos but the features of the music videos themselves are also a lot more varied, a lot of music videos do not feature the artists themselves and contain a lot of detail and images that would have been once considered taboo.

Definition of a music video

Before I even consider starting to plan my music video it is probably a good idea that I do some research into what makes a music video and the different opinions of what a music video is essentially. I used google to as my first search engine and found these resources:

‘A videotaped performance of a recorded popular song, usually accompanied by dancing and visual images interpreting the lyrics’ – Google

‘A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music/song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings’ – Wikipedia

Both of these were my favourite definitions of a music video, i particularly like the fact ‘Google’ mentions the fact that ‘USUALLY’ the images and dancing in the music video are related to the lyrics which makes me wonder in my music video should I break this normalitly and design and create a music video which differentiates from the rest.

Media A2!

For my second year of media, the task I have been given in hand is to successfully plan, film and edit a music video. During this task I have chosen to work with Sinead Brennan and Susannah Makin. The first thing we need is to do some research and choose an appropriate song. This weekend Susannah Sinead and I are going to meet up and listen to a few songs to decide  AT LEAST the genre of the song choice and hopefully the song.