Example: 5. Reference to the notion of looking...

The audience are often invited to look in a voyeuristic way, particularly at the human body and intimate moments, as they can enjoy a voyeuristic or scopophilic pleasure from doing so.

Goo Goo Dolls- 'Iris'

In this video the viewer is openly invited to look (as if) through a telescope at the narrative with Nicholas Cage and a woman. However, I think this is perhaps more a way of linking the performance with the narrative than to give the audience pleasure (sexual or otherwise) as the clips appear to be from a film, and so we just get an impression of seeing clips from a storyline that we are quite distanced from. There isn't really a voyeuristic element to this, I personally feel, as the lead singer, though looking at the characters through telescopes does not appear to do so with shame or his own sexual pleasure in mind, but in a sort of godlike/watching over them way. It seems more paternal, or like an omnipresent god keeping an eye on them.

Kylie Minogue- '2 Hearts'

In this video the audience is invited to watch Kylie as if they are in the audience and she is performing to them live in a seductive way. The eye contact accompanying her 'sexy' movements achieves this. The audience is being invited to get scopophilic pleasure from this video.

Sir Mixalot- 'Baby got back'

Theres alot of objectifying of the body in this video.
The way the women's bodies, not their faces, are what the camera is focused on, causes the audience to feel that their attention is also be drawn and focused onto these women's bodies. The camera tells the audience where to look, so when the camera is framed tightly on a woman's bum, then the audience feel that they are directing their own attention at the bum and hence are objectifying and watching the female body. This is also encouraged by the camera steadily zooming in closer to the body.

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.

Example: 2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals...

The relationship is either:

• Illustration- where the lyrics are matched by the visuals (this is synchronous), however, this is not always done in a literal way and illustration could be symbolic. Often here the lyrics and narrative will go together tightly.
• Amplification- where new layers of meaning are added to the lyrics by the visuals.
• Disjuncture- where a contradiction occurs between the lyrics and image.

Avril Lavigne- 'Nobody's Home'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbm4G_7rGzQ

(Sorry, embedding is disabled for this video)

This video I think is a good example of the relationship between the lyrics and visuals being illustrative, especially at the part where the homeless girl tries to call home, which indicates that she probably does 'want to go home'. However, it is a more symbolic relationship as someone picks up the phone, and therefore somebody is 'home'- so perhaps it is that 'nobody's home' in the way that she doesn't feel that she has a real 'home' to go to.

In this way the relationship is also one of amplification as it adds new meaning to the lyrics. We would not have necessarily linked the song with a story about a homeless girl who appears to have ran away from home for some reason without seeing the video.

Example: 1. Music Videos demonstrate genre characteristics...

Spice Girls- 'Wannabe'


This video, promoting the Spice Girls who were/are arguably the ultimate girl band, clearly demonstrates genre characteristics, such as:

• There are both individual and synchronised group dance routines.
• The individual group members breaking away and having individual moments where they are directly addressing the camera and performing with attention entirely on them.
• Lip-synching- though featuring in most genres' music videos, it is characteristic of the girl band/pop group to lip synch with no microphone or suggestion of the technical process of recording. The actual musical process is less important (generally) to these groups and their target audiences.
• Also recurrent themes such as fun and mischief making and female empowerment are genre characteristic of the girl band that can be seen here.

Slipknot- 'Duality'

This video, promoting a song by Slipknot, a metal band that are of a decidedly different genre to the Spice Girls demonstrates some clearly different genre characteristics.

• There is a big sense of a live performance, complete with all the equipment that would accompany this. This is a genre characteristic as the target audience for this group would be more into the musical process and probably seeing the band perform live.
• There is a far greater sense of realism with this video, reflected in the live performance and hand held camera style, that is common to this genre.
• Themes of chaos and anger/rage can clearly be seen here, that are common characteristics of this genre and the videos that accompany it.

Blink 182- 'All the small things'

I think this is a very interesting video in terms of genre characteristics of music video, as it is essentially mimicing and often mocking the characteristics of several other genres.

• This mocking and cheekiness is in fact characteristic of the playful, non-serious genre of 'pop-punk-rock' that Blink 182 conform to.
• When performing as 'themselves' they do so with the typical stage-style set up, including instruments, that is common to their genre. This is because their genre of music is also one that takes the musical and instrumental aspects more seriously.

Characteristics of other genres featured in the video:

• The boy/girl band- matching outfits (when leaving the plane at the beginning, and in the 'studio-performance' scene where they are wearing matching camouflage apparrel) are characteristic of this genre, as are the synchronised dance routines. Also the performances here are done so without microphones or musical equipment.

Analysis of ______ using goodwin's theory stuff

Goodwin's theory

Andrew Goodwin has identified the following features of music videos (in Dancing in the Distraction Factory- 1992, Routledge):

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. a stage performance in a metal video, a dance routine for a boy/girl band).
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (and this is either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting).
3. There is a relationship between music and viduals (and this is either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting).
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist (visual hooks) and the artist may develop motifs which recurr across their work (a visual style). These include close-ups of the star's face (the 'money shots'), iconography of band image and visual trademarks/motifs.
5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (achieved with screens within screens, telescopes etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body (and I believe also increasingly the male body in recent times).
6. There is often intertextual reference (such as to films, TV programmes, other music videos, etc.).

Learning Goodwin's categories I think should help me when analyse music videos myself, and also has impacted on my approach to constructing my own music video.

Key features of Music Video

These are some key features of music video that I have learnt:

• Music videos work around three codes- music lyrics and iconography. The relationship between these codes is key to understanding how music videos work.
• They are designed to provide pleasure in order to keep the viewer watching, and to encourage repeat viewings.
• The starting point for analysis is to explore whether the video is primarily performance-based, narrative-based or concept-based and how elements of each are used in it.

Inspirational Video- 'Under the Bridge'

I accidentally found this video while looking for the video for the non-acoustic version of the song.
It's therefore a video to the acoustic version of 'Under the Bridge' by 'The Red Hot Chili Peppers'.

The reason I thought it could be useful to look at and possibly reference is that there are several parallels with our idea for the performance, in that it is black and white for most of the song, is entirely performance, and shot in a simple location.
I think there are alot of very simple shots of the instruments, vocalist etc. that look professional and interesting, e.g. the low angle, off-centre shot of the guitarist playing.
Perhaps we can take staging notes from this video as well?

Performance Shot Idea

I think a close-up shot, probably with the face in profile, of one of the performers (probably a singer, and probably James B) laid over a shot from the narrative could be interesting and work.

Like in the video for 'Under the Bridge' by The Red Hot Chili Peppers, during the chorus.

Black & White Stills Practise: Ladsies

Image:

Actor/model thing: Lukey

Original image:

As you can see it was really very dark.

Here it is greyscaled without any further editing:

So I cheated and used Paint Shop Pro's 'One step photofix'.

After 'photofix':

I think I might have removed some more noise as well at this point.

If we greyscaled it now it would look like this:

I thought it might be able to cope with a bit more contrast:

More contrast: Also I thought it looked quite cool in high-ish contrast colour:

I shall relate this to the main idea in a minute or so.

The Third Man

amazing shots, aesthetics etc.



some good ideas for location?



loooooaaads of dutch tilts going on here

Music Video Analysis: George Michael

An analysis of the video for 'outside' by George Michael. It was the first video he released since he was outed following being arrested for comitting a 'lewd act' in a public toilet in the presence of an undercover cop.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da5uoggW9Eg&feature=PlayList&p=4F0172206D848CF8&index=1

It begins with a satirical clip of the beginning of what appears to be a German pornographic film. Its credits features such innuendous names such as 'Huu Jars' (i.e. 'huge arse') 'Heidi Kochenblauer' (i.e. 'koch' blower) 'Marchelo Uffenvanken'. This is clearly a rip off of the cheap and tacky films of this nature. The poor dubbing in the background also adds to this, with overtly sexual noises and also the almost sleazy, easy-listening jazz music.

There is an element of scopophilia as the male in the film visibly eyes up the female. She is also playing up to the camera i.e. us alot; i.e. when she fiddles with lips with her finger, directly addressing the camera. As she unties her top, the camera is tight on this, showing us effectively where and what he is looking at= scopophilia.

At this point it is significant that this is set in a toilet, and that the male had previously been innocently washing hands, only to be heavily seduced by the female; she even physically beckons him with her finger. This blantantly intentionally mirrors/relates to the situation that George Michael was in that lead to his arrest previous to this video. The fact that then a close up of her mouth as she blows a kiss at the camera loses focus only to regain focus as the mouth of a much less attractive, older policewoman who is holding her police badge at the camera and we hear sirens in the background. We have been put into George's position and been 'honey-trapped' and seduced and unfairly arrested. This directly addresses the event that George could either have taken to be very embarassing or made work for him. He is clearly resentful towards the situation and thinks himself treated unfairly.

The camera then switches to a more pizelated, blue-tones image of the policewoman, which cut out to a feedback-tinged blank screen as if a television has just lost signal. This plays on the theme of surveillance that runs through the video, particulaely CCTV-style surveillance. Also, before it cuts out there is a slight 'cinema-screen' liney disturbance to the picture (I am unsure of the technical name for it) which links with the 'Hollywood' theme as they are obviously notorious for film.

The word 'HOLLYWOOD' flashes up on screen, with the American flag 'running underneath' making up the actual text. The American anthem kicks in for a short time. This does not seem at all like a genuinely patriotic salute to the country. The Hollywood thing is clearly significant to the underlying theme of the video, that which is related to George Michaels own recent experience, which indeed occured in a toilet in Hollywood (which I have been to =) ).

Now we cut to a helicopter taking flight, which we assume is a police 'vehicle' as we can hear sirens in the background, and it is low-angle which further connotes that the vehicle is of authority. The fact that we see this before we see what has even happened, and the fact that the sound of the sirens and helicopter-chopping-noise appear to be cutting in over the music don't make us immediately sympathise with them. Especially as we think that the male seen previously was wronged by the police force.

Lots of slightly choppy angles from different cameras and make up of different movements (also alot of shots that appear to be shot from a helicopter), as well as shots of people watching and multiple cars being parked outside the toilet where the criminal activity is being carried out, as well as the numerous policemen physically moving the apparently non-resistant arrestee add to the sense of alot of hullaballoo being made out of something that does not seem to have so much police attention warranted, or indeed does not necessarily seem justifiably illegal.

Also, as the man is bundled into the police vehicle, the visuals juxtapose the lyrics 'go outside' as he in fact going inside, which could emphasise his now entrappment.

The 'heli-camera' then zooms out (slightly) of the scene of this man being arrested

The next two scenes are of a cliff-top and boat-top. They are introduced through cross cutting from one location to the other. At first the sweeping shots do not really reveal anything about what is happening in the location. They appear innocent shots sweeping over the sea and coast, or a boat. This is enigmatic, as we wonder at the significance of these shots, or perhaps are even second-guessing what will happen now. Both these establishing shots cut to a black and white, surveillance-style aesthetic which, coupled with the helicopter-style sweeping camera movement, and previous narrative in the video, gives the impression of police surveillance.

Album Cover Research- Blondie's 'Denis'

Blondie: Denis




























FRONT


Image:

• Picture of Debbie Harry


• Close up/beauty shot


• Takes up muh of total area; shoulders stretch entire width of cover


• Direct address, with face turned very slightly to (her) right


• hand on neck


• lips falling apart a little bit


• bleached blonde hair (can tell by darker roots, barely visible)


• very enigmatic expression


• make-up is classic, 80s-style with red lipstick, purple eyeshadow and eyeshadow even on brow bone and strong, solid eyebrows.


• She is wearing a black t-shirt


• it is shot in soft, slightly orange-toned lighting


• set against a similarly orange background

Text:

'BLONDIE' (name of band/group)

• in thick block capitals


• across entire top width


• takes up approx. a fifth of vertical space


• no background/transparent


• solid white

'DENIS' (title of album)

• smaller font


• solid black


• same font as band name


• set approx. a quarter of way across width of cover, to the left.

In botton of right corner names of 5 singles/tracks included on the album:

• same font as other text


• alternating white & black in colour


• all set in slightly different horizontal positions on cover

BACK

Image:

• background is same image as cover shot but blown up (approx. 200%), framed to include (her) right hand side of face up to just over centre of face, and to middle of forehead and imbetween lips and chin.

band shot:

• in bottom left/centre, reaching up to half way up cover


• men dressed in suits


• direct address


• posed, almost al members are smiling

Text:

Track list:

• on left


• takes up approx. half width


• black


• same font as title and band name


• black


• number of track, then song title (first letter capitalised only)

Music Video Analysis

My Chemical Romance's 'Welcome to the Black Parade'

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5nw1-_5-Vk

1. I am analysing 'Welcome to the Black Parade' by the band 'My Chemical Romance'. It was directed by Samuel Bayer.

The music belongs to the 'alternative rock' genre, and often categorised into the sub-genre 'emo'.

The video is highly stylised, with especial attention paid to the presentation of the band. They are all kitted out in matching 'marching band' outfits. The people marching behind the band are all clad in black, and the video is shot in black and white. The main narrative in the video (following the man in the hospital gown) is quite surreal, unclear and very dark; he begins by writhing around in a hospital bed surrounded by several old-fashioned-clothed nurses and we do not know what is happening to him or where he is, which is unnerving.

There is a strong sense of solidarity in the large crowd of people following behind the band in the 'parade' which adds to the sense of this implied in the lyrics with the repetition of 'let's' and 'we'. It makes the viewer feel involved and close to the band/song and the other fans, which is a key component in the success of the emo genre.


This type of visuals is very common to the genre of the music.

Inspirational Videos

to go here.