Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Example: 4. Demands of the record company...

Busted- 'What I go to School For'


Busted were a heavily marketed and commercial band, and therefore their record label would have had alot of say in the production of this video, particularly as it was the band's first video release. This makes it a very good video to look at in considering the techniques used to market and promote the actual band/artist through the music video.
  • Loads of close-ups continuously of the band members here, particularly Charlie, and particularly through the performance section of the video. These provide good 'visual hooks' and are important in order to identify the performers to the audience. Direct adress also helps to achieve this identification here. This identification of the individual band members through these 'money shots' would have been especially important given that this was their debut video.
  • Motifs such as 'the busted jump' (where all the band members jump with their guitars) can also be identified in this video, and can help to give the artist's videos a 'visual style'.
  • The iconography of the band's image is also very solid, with their dress codes (rebelliously scruffy clothes; baggy jeans, sweat bands, badges, torn uniform, schoolboy ties- a bit of a visual trademark really), cheeky but not disgraceful behaviour (scruffy uniform, fancying a teacher, dropping a pencil on the floor so the teacher 'shows me more') and all three of them playing guitar together in the very low-slung fashion.

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