Friday, 8 August 2014

Intertexuality in Music Videos

John Stuarts description of the music video “ incorporating, raiding and reconstructing ” is essentially the essence of intertextuality. Intertexuality is when media texts reference another media text, this can either be reflected in the style of the video or done in a humourous way (like a parody). It can help audiences take further levels of meaning away from a text.

Using something with which the audience may be familiar to generate both potentially nostalgic associations and new meanings. It is perhaps more explicitly evident in the music video than in any other media form, with the possible exception of advertising.

Intertexuality - Cinema, fashion and photography- 
  • It is perhaps not surprising that so many music videos draw upon cinema as a starting point, since their directors are often film school graduates looking to move on eventually to the film industry itself.
  • Most mainstream music videos have a cinematic feel – largely thanks to new technologies and post production techniques.
  • There are several lucrative tie-ins these days, including synergy of soundtrack releases and exclusive artist recordings. 
  • Visual reference in music video coming from a range of sources, though the three most frequent are perhaps cinema, fashion and art photography.
‘Father Figure’
  • Fashion sometimes takes the form of specific catwalk references and sometimes even the use of supermodels, as by George Michael in both ‘Father Figure’(Morahan/Michael 1988) and ‘Freedom ’ (Fincher 1990). 

            
 It uses an anime-stylization which was supervised by Kazuto Nakazawa, who had previously directed the animated segment of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 among other things. Therefore the intextuality is similar to the anime in kill bill.

In my own music video, I could possible use these influences to mock something that socially shouldn't be expected such as maybe anything to do with appearance such as the recent Victoria Secret advert which presents a 'normal' body in order to make a serious point that you're perfect the way you are and that 'perfect body' can be anyone, not a certain size or shape.
  


Wednesday, 6 August 2014

Codes and Coventions of a Music Video

The purpose of  music video, is to promote the single, album and also to promote the artist or band, a typical music video feeds, adapts and creates a 'star image'. It also sets the meanings of a song through the visuals and most importantly it is made to entertain the audience.

Let me entertain you!


There are various elements to a music video for example there is performance, narrative, thematic and symbolic. In addition  music video is usually between 3-4 minutes long with a various mix of these elements and it does this to advertise the artist/band and song/album.

Performance:
  • It was first from clips of performance that created a music video
  • often contains shots of the artist performing 
  • It could be a live performance with various shots of the audience as well
  • it can show the artist in real life situations such as warming up back stage or fooling around with friends similar to Tonight Alive's video ' What are you so scared of'
  • often it has many close ups of the artists and a particular visual style, a motif such as prop or action 
  • often the artist could appear in unusual places and lip sync to the song
Narrative:
Avril Lavigne's Smile Music video of her picking up the broken hearts
  • This often tells some sort of story through the music video such as a break up or falling in love.
  • Its almost like a mini film, with a beginning, middle and ending 
  • it can also promote a film through the narrative such as Black Veil Brides promoting the film 'The Avengers' with their song 'Unbroken' 
  • Sometime the artist is part of it and at other times the observer such as Avril Lavigne's 'Smile' music video 
  • Its very fast paced with many cuts 
  • mimics other films or TV genres
  • sometimes the story can contradict what is seen for effect like Carly Rae Jepson's 'call me maybe' when the guy at the end turns out to be gay.


Thematic:
  • There are a lot of common themes in the video
  • depends on the genre of music, for example heavy metal go for a more performance dominated video.
 Symbolic:
  •  Uses a lot of symbols to build up meaning
  • lots of use of montages 
  • lights often used to suggest mood
  • fast paced
  • pictures to support or contradict the lyrics
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