Music Videos

Why have music videos?

Draw a star diagram to show a number of different purposes of a music video……

The purpose of the Music Video

Promotes a single and, normally, an album Promotes the artist or band Creates, adapts or feeds into a ‘star image’ Entertains the audience Sets the ‘meanings’ of a song by the use of

images

Basic structures

In 3-4 minutes a typical music video combines a mix of live performance, narrative, and other visual imagery including computer graphics and animation.

It does this to advertise the band/artist and song

Music Videos

Often contains a number of different elements:

Performance Narrative Concept:

Thematic Symbolic

Performance

Many music videos include performance of the artists as part of the video

It was from clips of performances that music videos developed

What do performance videos contain?

Brainstorm all the things that you would expect to see in a music video that was based around a band or artist’s perfomance:

Does this vary depending on the genre of music?

Often contain shots of the artists performing Can be a live stage performance, with shots of

artists and audience Can be the artists in “real life” situations eg

warming up, talking, fooling around Often includes lots of close ups of the artist There can be a particular visual style that goes

with the artist (a motif) eg particular clothing, actions, props, type of images.

Often the artist can appear to perform in an unusual place - all lip-synched eg a field, a rooftop

Examples of Performance Music Videos

Discuss in a group any memorable music videos you know of that are of this type. Select one that you think is a particularly memorable example.

Be prepared to tell the class: Name of performer(s), track, brief description of video and the features that you think are memorable.

Narrative

Often the video tells a story either that features in the lyrics or is suggested in the lyrics eg girl dumps boy

This narrative can be like a Mini film, with a beginning, middle and end

Or it can suggest some links to a story It can promote a film with clips form the film

included telling a story

Narrative videos

Brainstorm what you would expect to see in “narrative” type videos…what are some common storylines in these?

Narrative

Because it is only 3-4 minutes it can bevery fast paced, lots of shots and cutsuse inter-textuality with films, tv and other videosmimic other film and tv genre eg horror or sci fi sometimes the story can contradict what is seen

for effectsometimes the artist is a part of the story, or an

observer or completely separate

Narrative Music Videos

Discuss in a group any memorable music videos you know of that are of this type. Select one that you think is a particularly memorable example.

Be prepared to tell the class: Name of performer(s), track, brief description of video and the features that you think are memorable

Thematic

There are lots of common themes in music videos Depends on the genre of music Eg Heavy metal bands go for perfomance

dominated clipsRap has lots of “street” imagesdance routines are common for many female artist performances

Symbolic

Use of lots of symbols to build up meaning eg graveyard…death

Lots of use of montage -lots of images to create meaning sometimes often contradictory

Lighting often used to suggest mood Fast paced - often only a few seconds per shot to

build up meanings Pictures can support or contradict the lyrics

Thematic or Symbolic Music videos

Discuss in a group any memorable music videos you know of that are of this type. Select one that you think is a particularly memorable example.

Be prepared to tell the class: Name of performer(s), track, brief description of video and the features that you think are memorable

Some Other Codes and Conventions

Visually stylish – ‘artistic’ mise-en-scene Cutting related to the rhythm of the music Intercutting between performance and images

or story Experimental use of camera/editing (hand held

camera, distortion of colours) Often break the rules of continuity editing. Can

use lots of jump cuts Lots of use of digital effects

Idea of Spectacle

Music Videos may be considered to be examples of 'spectacle'.

In this the performers are performing, often looking directly at the viewer. This is called “direct address” -where they are directly interacting with the viewer.

In the case of men, this involves the look of the character towards the viewer. The male is seen to be addressing the viewer directly. He is supposed to be singing directly for you.

The female figure is often an object of an erotic gaze, object of male desire which is a voyeuristic gaze. A Voyeur is someone who looks at someone. This means females in music vids are often dressed and posed in very sexual ways

The Male (and Female) Gaze

In a group decide on your vote for the videos that you think are the prizewinners for

A) the most sexually provocative female performance

B) the most sexually “I want you” male performance

Types of Music Videos Performance Narrative Concept

http://emmamusicvideo.blogspot.com/2010/07/narrative-performance-based-and-concept.html

Take on Me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914

To make your Music Video

What is the theme or aim of my music video? Who will this appeal to? How can I make it appeal to this group? What are the lyrics saying? What do the music/rhythms/genre suggest? How can I link music/lyrics/images? What type of video will it be?