Music Video Analysis

This video is famoulsy know for causing such controversy in the music industry. Robin Thicke was even sued as the backing track sounded so similar to a previouls released song.
This video is a prime example for the male gaze:

This image taken from the video particularly highlights the sexism within, the men each have a women of their own by their sides, the women are wearing necklaces which are most likely broughts by the rich men who are controlling and manipulating them.

The portrayel of men and women in this video are polar opposites

Men: given the don't care attitude; unbuttoned shirts, sunglasses
They are also portrayed as the player: surrounded by girls
Being dressed in black makes them mysterious and dark

Women: Dressed in white makes them seem pure and innocent
Dressed in next to nothing or PVC which has connotations of a stripper.

Star Profile

I chose to complete my star profile on Justin Timberlake as he is one of my favourite artists and has been around for a long time, and had a big change in image.

Timeline of Music Video

Bessie Smith- St.Louis Blues (1929)

This was considered as the first music video. Looking at it now the shots are extremely slow and shaky compared to what we are used to seeing now. It appears to be filmed continuously so there are no effects or transitions to link the shots and types of shot are limited to mid close ups. The song also appears muffled as there wasn't a pre-recording the sound was recorded with the visuals.


Vanilla Fudge- You keep me hangin' on (1968)

As you can see videos are already much more advanced just from being in colour. There are transitions and cuts between the shots which creates a more exciting video. Looking at it now it seems quite amateur and the background images are obviously fake. However the vocals have been pre-recorded so they are much clearer.


Abba- Dancing Queen (1976)

By this time music video''s were more common and more popular. As you can see they are now in colour, the variations of shots are more advanced and the vocals are much clearer as they have been pre-recorded. However this video is still limited to the band performing to an audience and the camera skills still appear shaky.


MARRS- Pump up the volume (1987)

The concept behind this video is already more advanced as it isn't just a performance from the band. There are more visuals, transitions and shots which match the faster pace of the video. The music is even more developed as there is more background sounds and effects to the voices. In the 80's MTV USA began airing which meant music videos were more widely seen and popular.



Britney Spears- Hit me baby one more time (1999)

This video is iconic and kick started the career of Britney Spears. Videos were now becoming narrative based by having stories and concepts behind them. Dance routines were involved and they were overall more interesting and exciting to watch. The types of effects and transitions were quicker to match the pace of the music.

How important are music videos today?

I don't think music videos are to important today. They provide visuals to a song but I don't think they are necessary for the success of a song or artists. I think in years to come artists won't make music videos as teenagers which are the primary audience most of the time spend more time on the internet than they do watching tv channels like MTV who are the sole source of music videos. I also think as technology become even more advanced than it already is there will be another way of making music videos so even the ones we see today will seem out of date.

Prelim Task Evaluation

1) Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?

I worked in a group of four with, Olivia, Max and Sam. Originally we divided the tasks up equally so we would all put in equal work, i was decided I would be in front of the camera whilst the rest filmed and directed and then we would all contribute towards editing.

2) How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use?

We used a timeline to plan the timings and shots to go with our music video. We looked at the original video and then worked out the length and style of shot.

3) What theories could you apply to the video you chose?

Within the video we chose i think both voyeurism and prevalence are used to highlight the star in th video.
Thought beats are also used in the editing.
Carol Venallis said that the majority of the shots in a music video are extreme close ups or extreme long shots and this video definitely conforms to this statement.

4) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?

To film the task we used a camera, tripod and green screen. Then to edit we began o use premier pro.

5) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

We first took into account how little time we had to plan, film and edit the video. We then discussed when each of us was available to film or edit as we all had different free periods to work around. When we were given our first video we took into account how difficult and challenging it would be to mimic the locations and editing which is ultimately why we decided to change the video.

6) How successful was your music video copy? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight what you would improve/ do differently? what did others say about your production? 

Overall our music video was unsuccessful as it is incomplete, and some editing still needs to take place to ensure it is in the right order. At first we didn't work very well as a team as me and Olivia were much more organised than the other two and wanted to get started as we had completed all our planning but thy hadn't so we had to wait. If we were to do it again we would ensure all the planning was done quickly and correctly so we didn't waste time

7) What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing your music video, do you think?

This task has taught me just how many cuts, angles and shots there are within a music video, just watching them you don't realise but having to analyse and copy them makes you much more aware. This will help me a lot with time management when it comes to filming my final music video.

8) How does it compare with filming an opening to a film?


During filming a film opening we were restricted to the amount of cuts we could do as too many would make a very confusing fast paced film opening. Whereas filming a music video there is an unlimited amount of cuts available to keep the audience enticed.

9) What are your strengths and weaknesses as a group member?

I think as a group member i was organised and contributed some good ideas towards the video however i was quite often absent at the times we needed to films so i will definitely make more time when filming my final video. I would also try to take more charge so the rest of my group were just as organised as me.

10) Looking at the other group's video which do you think were most successful and why?

One of the groups recreated Little Mix's Black Magic video which i think worked out the best out of all the videos. They worked very well as a team and equally shared out the work, during editing i saw they found some new techniques which enabled them to perfectly make the video very similar to the original.

Storyboard

Music Video Analysis Using Goodwins And Vernallis Theory

Taylor Swift- Bad Blood

Genre- Pop

Analysis

Goodwin- The events and visuals in the video both amplify and illustrate the lyrics of the song. 'Cause baby now we got bad blood'. Having bad blood between people means they aren't on good terms and throughout the video there seems to be a group of women who are training for a battle or war. 

One lyric also refers to knives which appear in some sections of the video 'Still got scars on my back from your knife'                

                                                                                      

The video also contains thought beats, with jumps cuts and transitioning matching the beat and rhythm of the music. 

Prevalence and star image are both used throughout the video. Many extreme close ups and close ups of used of Taylor Swift. This forces the audience to view her as the dominant character in the video.

Voyeurism and intertextual references- all the women that appear in this video are already successful in their own right and own business, including victoria secrets models, singers and actors. This helps to both attract a male audience and enable the audience to recognise the other people involved. 

Vernallis- There is a clear narrative within this music video, there is also a very even balance between performance and narrative as this video is very performance orientated. However the narrative is not complete which is common within the pop genre. I think the narrative of this music video drives the video forward as opposed to the song itself. 

This video contains foregrounded editing, it is clear the fire at the end of the video is edited in as it is so dramatic, There is a lot of editing within the video however it is all in time to the phrases and beats. The editing is so smooth it increases the verisimilitude. 

The diegesis os this video is a futuristic, battle theme. This is slowly revealed as the video goes on before coming to a climax at the end leaving a gap in the narrative. 

Hozier- Work Song

Genre- Indie Rock

Goodwin- The lyrics of this song portray a man dying and losing the women he loves, the visuals in this video do either amplify or contradict this. However the dance within the video does portray some time of loss.

Thought beats are portrayed in a different way in this video, instead of cuts and transitions the dancers are moving in time to the beat and rhythm.

As the song is about a love loss the location and the couples dance fit the genre.

Prevalence and star image are used in this video with close ups and establishing shots of Hozier to force the audience to view him as the star of the video.

Vernallis- This video is a visual response to the lyrics, all the cuts and transitions are in time to the music, this video has more performance than narrative as it is of a performance in a club.

The majority of shots in this video are extreme close ups so some of the people have parts cut off, quite often the foreground is not in focus but the background is and then it switches. This is established as distinctive to this video. Lots of the shots are tracking or panning to establish the location.

Bluey Robinson-showgirl

Genre- R&B

Goodwin- The visuals illustrate the lyrics as they are talking about girls being attractive, the majority of the video features women being looked at by men.

The location of the video fits the R&B genre of the song, it is in a relaxed setting.

All the cuts in the video are to the beat, making them thought beats.

It is obvious who the star of the video is as prevalence is used to ensure the audience view him in this way. Close ups and extreme close ups are used.

As the video is mainly about how men view women, voyeurism is used for men to idealize the women.

Vernallis- The music video fits the genre and style of the song very well, there is alot more performance in this video than narrative as it is in a performance style setting. All the cuts and editing are in time to the music.

New Prelim Video

After a lot of thought and watching the video to Pink- Dont Let Me Get Me as a group we decided it is just to challenging to copy the video in just over a week.
We began to look at a number of videos that were much simpler and didn't have lots of challenging editing techniques. We found a few but many of them required large groups of people so we didn't think they were suitable for a small group of four.
Finally we found Jessie J's- Who You Are video and decided we would use it for out preliminary task.

Props List

For this video we need very few props as it is in such a simple setting but we will need some costumes to mimic what Jessie J looks like:

 

-White top

-Black wig

-Gold necklace

Location Reece Shots

These photos are of the locations we are going to film our prelim task:

1st scene- back playground

2nd scene-media classroom

3rd scene) Link Corridor

4th scene- bottom of platt building

Jessie J- Who You Are Lyrics

An essential part of the music video is the lyrics and this music video is more about the lyrics than the visuals, they are quite deep and have a meaningful message.

What Music Means To Me

Initially I didn't think this task would be challenging but when trying to find just three points to represent points in my life, i began to struggle, also trying to remember songs i used to listen to over five years ago was challenging. However I spoke to some of my friends and we began to think of lots of popular songs from when we began high school and i was able to pick one.

I created a prezi to present this task-

Prelim Task

Today we were given our preliminary task, song and group,  before this we watched some from last year to get a feel for the task. We were then given our groups and our song, i am in a group of four with Sam, Max and Liv, our song is Pink- Don't let me get me.

On first watching the video we could see that there weren't many cuts but many challenging transitions we would have to complete during editing as they aren't possible when filming.

This week we are completing our planning and research, including a storyboard, lyrics, location reece shots, a props list and practicing lip synching.

Dry the River task

For this task we had to again listen to the song alone, without the visuals to go along with it. We had to interpret in our groups what we thought the genre of the song was, whether the artist was a solo or band, who the audience might be, what the lyrics of the song meant and the pace of the song.

We then discussed this as a class and we more or less all said the same things;
Genre; Indie rock
Artist: Band
Target Audience: A more mature audience with unique/ different taste
Lyrics: Portrayed an angry love song
Pace:
The pace started off slow but began to pick up pace as the emotion of the song changed.


In our group's we then had to form a potential music video to go with the song including narrative, setting, costume, shots and visuals to match the lyrics. I was in a group with Olivia and Liv, we came up with the following ideas to promote the song through a video.

Potential Narrative: 
We thought there would be more narrative than performance as the lyrics are telling a love story. We decided against performance as we didn't imagine it to be filmed as a gig or concert, we imagined it to be in a more isolated space.

Potential Setting:
We pictured a white background and a very minimalistic video. Only the band would be seen with the occasional jump cut to the narrative. The main focus would be on the lead singer of the band

Potential Costumes:
-Dark colours
-Scruffy, relatively normal clothes- they care more about their music than their perceived image.

Camera Shots:
Lots of close ups of the lead singer to support Goodwins 'Star Image' theory. This would be broken up by establishing shots of the band including birds eye and low and high angle shots.

Visuals to match lyrics:
As the lyrics portray that the man has lost the women he is in love with we would break the video up with jump cuts to a story of two people who aren't in the band, they start out very much in love but as the lyrics and pace of the song change, so would their story. One lyric says 'like so many birds' to amplify this lyric we would have doves as there have connotations of love and peace.

What the video was really like;
First watching the video it seems very weird and doesn't seem to match the lyrics or have any relevance. However at a deeper look I identified that the video was portraying the four elements; earth, wind, fire and water. Throughout the video there was only one setting, with equal amounts of camera time for each band member. The pace began reasonably slow (which matched the pace of the song) as the pace picks up the facial expressions, pace and amount of transitions and cuts speeds up and become more frequent. The band seem to become more in pain and desperate in the final seconds of the video. The narrative is very random however the lyric 'like so many birds' is referenced through the use of dead birds.

Carol Vernallis Theory

Carol Vernallis said that there are four stages in a music video, these four stages are narrative, editing, camerawork and diegesis.

Narrative:

-The video is a visual response to the music
-The music video suits the style and genre of the song and the artists look
-The music video must also cut in time with the rhythm of the soundtrack
-The video does not necessarilt always have a balance between narrative and performance and the narrative is not always complete- it may be a partial or fragmented narrative.
-The structure may be disjointed.
-There may not always be a clear resolution (closure) to the end of the music video, it may pose questions that are not really answered.
-Something else could be driving the music video forward, it could be the music, performance, a mixture or a different element.
-There may be a narrative or theme running through the video, but in a montage style.

Editing

-Editing may match the musical phase or beat.

-The video may disrupt or break many of the rules of 'continuity editing'. 

-Editing may become foregrounded. The edits may be really obvious, to draw attention to them.

-A style of editing distinctive to that style or genre of music may be used. 

Camerawork

-When it comes to shot types, extremes are very common

-Extreme (close ups) shots are common, however they aren't as common as mid shots and regular close ups, it enables the audience to familiarise themselves with the face and look of the artists.

-The style of framing and movement may run through the video and be distinctive to that video.

-The camera may move in time with the music and may move to the lyrics

-The master shot, or establishing shot is used frequently. 

Diegesis

It may be revealved quite slowly. 

-Actions are not necessarily completed, they are often disrupted or interrupted inn some way. 

-Characters or objects may move within the music video. 

-There may be gaps in the audiences understanding of the diegesis- in time, space, music, performance and narrative, 

-Some frames may be more important than others. 

-There may be many repetitions throughout- phrases, beats, other musical elements, themes, lyrics, performance, colours, images or camera positions. 

Radiohead Steet Spirit

First we heard the first 30 seconds of this song without viewing the video and then had to feedback on what our expectations for the video would be, as a class we thought it would be:

-Dark- maybe raining or gloomy weather
-In a desert/forest or somewhere isolated
-Black and White
-Both narrative and performance- more narrative than performance but still kept to a minimal
-We decided the music was of an Indie rock genre
-Soft and slow cuts and transitions

We then watched the full-length video and found that many of our expectations were right, we decided the video was:

-weird
-slow paced
-Black and white which conveyed dark emotions
-It portrayed Goodwin's star image theory and prevalence- Tom York the lead singer was the main focus in close-ups, this makes him the recognisable character to fans and gives them something familiar to refer to.

The video includes the following things:
Transitions- fades and crossover shots of the lead singers face. The images amplify the lyrics 'fade out'. It also has a disorientating effect on the audience as they watch.
Order of narrative- there isn't a set order of narrative, it is very random with no structure. There is repeated scenes and props which jump from one to another.
Pace- it is very slow with slow transitions and long lingering shots. Some places it is even in slow motion.
Special Effects- the whole video is in black and white which makes the emotion of the video depressing and dull. During editing, some parts have been cut in slow motion, and the lead singers arm has been cut off. They have also used split screen so they could have the same person on the screen twice.
Framing-the lead singer is always infront and in focus, the rest of the band are in the background and not necessarily recognisable.
Camera angles- close-ups, extreme close ups, birds eye view. There is a limited variety of camera angles as they are often repeated.
Movement- throughout the whole video the camera is extremely still.
Mise En Scene- the band wear scruffy, dull clothes which give's us the impression that they are more about their music than their image. they have little facial expression and there are few props and gimmicks.

What About Us Music Video

A few years ago on a geography school trip me and a few of my friends decided to experiment with an app and make a music video to one of our favourite songs at that point in time, 'What About Us' by the Saturdays. Looking at it now it has given me some experience on making a music video and it may come in useful when creating one this year.

Andrew Goodwins Theory

Conventions within a music video;

1) Goodwin suggested there need to be a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, this relationship will either, illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics behind the song.

Jessie J's 'Price Tag' video is an example of a video that contradicts the lyrics, she is singing about how is isn't about the money however she is stood in front of a money tree. 

2) Thought beats enable us to see the sounds, the cuts are designed to fit to the beat during editing.

Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, Uptown funk has lots of thought beats with both the cuts and the dance moves and events occurring in the video.

Some of the lyrics are mimicked by events in the video such as 'fill me cup and pour some liquor in it'.  

3) Genre-related style and Iconography- some artists have a trend of repeating certain actions or events within their music videos in order to establish a familiar trademark with their fan base.

-Genre is also the location as many locations are associated and fit within different genres of music.

Beyonces video for 'Best Thing I Never Had' had a wedding theme which goes with the romantic genre of the song. 

4) Prevalence: multiple close ups of the vocalist or main person within the music video  create a star image to promote a recognisable brand, person or image.

-Camera angles are used to make this person look good. Women are often sexualised with provocative angles, this links to Mulvey's Male Gaze theory which creates a fetishisation among the audience towards the artist.

 In sam smiths video of 'Stay with me' he is clearly identifiable as the star as lots of close ups are used to highlight this. 

5) Voyeurism- plays a major part in a music video, especially in relation to females- Goodwin recognised that many music videos included voyeuristic angles to women in order to entice the male audience.

Voyeurism- being made to watch/stare at specific things.

 Rihanna's music video for 'Stay' entices a male audience as it features lots of carefully placed shots of her in a bath mostly naked. 

6) Intertextual references to other media texts- it isn't uncommon to recognise the visuals or lyrics of a song as a direct reference to another media text. It engages audiences and provides them with gratification if they can recognise the link.

Taylor Swifts recent video for 'Bad Blood' is a perfect example, she gathered some of the most famous, inspirational women in the world to promote both her music and their buissess. 

Key Aspects of a successful music video;

1) Though Beats- Goodwin recognised this by three steps

- look into the music and interpret it by looking at the versus/chorus.

-'the voice within the song', this is when the artists voice is extremely unique and recognisable.

- states the artist is telling a story and generates a reputation as a 'storyteller'. Music videos are created to emphasize the lyrics and the story within the songs.

2) Narrative and Peformance- Goodwin suggested that music videos should avoid the common narrative as their role is more to advertise than become a story.

-Artists should become both a participant and narrator to increase authenticity.

- Lip-synchin and other actions featured in the video increase its verisimilitude (realistic), this prevents disbelief.

3)Star Image- Goodwin suggested that this increases audience awareness of who the star is in the video.

-It shows development over time, which increases audience interest.

4) Relation of visuals to song

-illustate

-amplify

-disjuncture/contradict

5) Technical Aspects-Camera, including movement, angles and composition

-Sound, including pace and pitch

-Mise en Scene, (location, costume, facial expression, make-up)

-Editing, including post and production

Common Features Of A Music Video

Today we had our second A2 media lesson. We began to discuss what the typical characteristics of music videos are. We came up with the following as a class and in small groups:

Initial thoughts

Today we had our first lesson on music videos to prepare us for our A2 media coursework. I have always looked forward to this task since taking media as I am so interested in the music industry and the excitement of music videos and how they are made. I find it very interesting and can't wait to start planning.
So far i don't have many worries about thinking of ideas for a video as I already have a few thoughts on what I would like to include, however after today's lesson I am slightly worried about the editing side of the music video. They include so many variety of shots and locations that need to be edited and if we choose a fast paced song, the amount of transitions and cuts will be a lot.