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.