Music videos/Content Research
A Music video is a short film that relates to the song it is for. Music videos are very specific and unique to the artist and sometimes it can take a lot of planning and time for them to be right. Although Music videos are short they usually have a lot of meaning and tell a story relating to the genre and lyrics to the song. Music videos are also a way of promoting the artist's music and they are used as a marketing strategy to promote the sale of the song. Although the origins of the music video date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they again came into prominence in the 1980s when the channel MTV (originally "Music Television") based its format around the medium.
The main purpose of a music video
- Promote a specific single or album
- Promote the artist or band
- Entertains as a product in its own right
- Reinforces the meaning of the song
- Tie ins - film/tv placement 'synergy' the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.
There are also 7 main reasons as to why people like to watch music videos and these are.
Personal Identity- Audiences look up to the artist and relate to them and follow everything they do.
Demographic- Video relates to the targeted audience.
Information- The audience may gain information from a music video or there may be an underlying message which they are trying to convey.
Controversy- The video could be created to cause controversy so that it creates publicity or to raise awareness for controversy happening in the modern-day.
Entertainment- The audience watch music videos for pure entertainment and escapism and to get exclusive from their idols.
Thought-provoking- The video raises awareness for issues in the real world and quite emotional. They usually have had careful consideration or attention to create so that there is no controversy.
Social interaction- Audiences interacting with music videos and also other forms of marketing is called convergence which is the blending of multiple media forms into one platform for purposes of delivering a dynamic experience.
MUSIC VIDEO STYLES
Performance and narrative
Performance based music videos are where the artist or band are performing the song as it is being recorded. This could be at a concert or show or even just in a recording studio. There is no paticular narrative and it uses different camera angles to show off the artist. This video would most likely used Diegetic sound which has come straight from the microphone when recorded.
Narrative music videos are very common which means the video has a storyline to it. This could be linked to what the song is about or sometimes it has no relevance to the actual lyrics in the song. The video could have the artist acting in the video which would most likely attract more people to want to watch it, but in some cases they wont always feature.
Some music videos can be a mixture of both performance and narrative for example the music video for "coffee and tv" by Blur have both styles mixed into one. It features narrative of a milk carton exploring and trying not to get killed as he falls in love with another milk carton that gets killed. As you can tell this story line doesn't have any relevance to the lyrics in the song at all. However the video also features two parallel scenes and the other one is of the band performing the song in what looks like a basement.
Animated
An animated style of the music video can relate to different types of animation such as CGI and stop motion. An example of a modern CGI animated video is Jorja Smiths "Come over" video. As this is very new the animation is very good quality compared to when the animation first started. Some videos have part animation and some videos are all animated. This may be because the artist could not have captured all of the shots on a normal camera and actors. After all, the imagination for the video was much bigger. They may have wanted to add things in that could only be animated.
Interpretive
An interpretive style music video is to portray what is said in the lyrics of the song in a visual format. For example, the 11 minute music video to Michael Jackson's "Thriller". There are two different types of interpretive videos and these are audience interpretation and production interpretation. Audience interpretive videos are where there is a message in the video and the audience will take their own meaning from it. Production interpretive videos are usually done if the video doesn't have much meaning to it and this can make it more effective.
Surrealist
A surrealist video is created by Directors who wants to leave an impression to the audience. By doing this it makes the video interesting so that people will remember it and be intrigued by it. This creates Profit as it isnt a typical video and will leave people thinking about it, then more and more people will want to check the video out. An example is Coldplays "The scientist" video as he is lipsyncs, the video travels backwards. This is unusual and not common in music videos which is why alot of people like watching it. A surrealist video is almost like a usp and is very strange.
Homage
A Homage music video is when an artist or band honors and pays respect to the art form that they are recreating. These videos are usually influenced and use the foundations but are not copied completely. It is a good way to connect with the original artists fans as they will recognize and enjoy the remake of the video alot. An example of this is the "Buddy Holly" By Weezer.
Parody
A parody is a music video that has been solely recreated to make fun of its original source material. The whole purpose of a parody is to make people laugh and to create humour. Parody's are extremely popular on youtube as anybody could create one and post it for people to see. They can sometimes get really popular because if someone searched for the original video, the parody will come up after it. An example of someone who creates alot of parodys is Bart Baker, and he used to be really popular on youtube.
Patische
A pastiche is when another artist imitates the style of music from another artist. They steal and borrow ideas from another video to create their own. Pastiche is a mixture of a Homage and Parody as it can sometimes ridicule a music video but also celebrate it at the same time and make it seem like its not in a respectful way. An example is Foo Fighter, "Walk".
Genre and tropes
Music genres have been helped by cliches and tropes over the years to help identify a particular genre of music. Audiences have now got used to different genres and are able to tell which style of music it is from recognising the tropes and conventions within it. For example, the music video to the song Country Dons by Ramsey features a lot of cliches and stuff you would expect in a grime video. The main reason anyone can tell this is a grime song is from the mise en scene. The people in the video are all wearing very expensive designer clothing, covering their faces with masks and hoodies. This makes them appear unrecognisable and superior. They are showing off fancy cars and watches and also girls in very little clothing. Nowadays all the thing features in this video are very common in all grime videos and without hearing the actual music you would be able to tell the genre.
Another genre of music is R&B and the most popular artist that comes to mind when I think of that genre is Chris Brown. All of Chris browns music videos are very similar in what they feature. His new video for Go crazy is a good example as they are all in a huge expensive house partying. The video also sexualises girls as the grime video which is a cliche across many genres. Chris Browns video has a lot of dancing which a lot of R&b videos have as it is a song for dancing too. I noticed that the video is also very colourful and includes CGI which has been added to make the video more interesting such as fireworks. As a fan of Chris Brown's music, he has special fx in a lot of his music video which makes them very nice to watch.
CGI is used alot in music videos to make them more interesting. The reason some artists do this is because they may not have the budget to be able to get a good background which means they use a green screen to chroma key in backgrounds behind the artist or CGI in different effects to set the tone and mood for the video.
Diegetic and Non Diegetic sound in music video
If a music video features a live recording or performance this will be diegetic as the audience are hearing it as it was physically recorded. However if the music video is a narrative based concept video with the audio added in over the top this would be non diegtic as it has been added onto the video. Sometime music videos can feature both non diegtic and digetic where half way through the video the music will stop and there will be talking from the actors.
Parallel editing
Parallel editing is also known as cross cutting which involves a scene in a music video which cuts to a completely different scene or story. This could mean that two different storys are unfolding in one video and the scenes cut back and fourth to different locations that are happening at the same time. Jump cuts could also be used here which are shots that vary very slightly but look similar. Instead of having a long shot of something a jump cut, cuts to a shot of the same subject. Here is an example of this.
