Music Video Case Study

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Music Video ProductionCase Study

Sydney Pooleman

+Unit 29 - Music Video Production We will look at Music Videos from a number of perspectives, this

template is for you to write up your notes and to complete your case study.

The document is split into 3 different tasks, each with separate questions to answer.

Task 1 is concerned with the purposes of music videos and the strategies employed by labels and artists

Task 2 is concerned with the styles, techniques and conventions of music video production

Task 3 is your own case study into a minimum of three music videos where you can unpack and discuss the videos considering everything you have looked at in Task 1 and 2

+Unit 29 – Music Video Production Learning outcomes, this case study is concerned with

the first two learning outcomes of the unit:

1. Understand the purpose of music videos

2. Understand the styles, conventions, and techniques of music videos

3. Be able to originate and plan a music video production for a specific music track

4. Be able to work to complete production of a music video.

+Unit 29 – Music Video ProductionAssessment Criteria The assessment criteria addressed by this case study,

further details are in your project brief:

+Notes on completing the case study It is often easier to show something you are discussing

than to take time describing it. With this in mind, feel free to add lots of illustrative images from your chosen video examples. Links to YouTube/Vevo/etc are also encouraged.

Remember, when you make a point or define something, you should follow this with an example, an explanation of this and then link to further texts/videos where possible.

If you don’t think there is enough room to add your full response to a question, don’t just reset the font size to really small, add an extra slide wherever necessary.

+Task 1 - Purposes

+Task 1 - Purposes Q1 - Outline the 3 core purposes of music video with a short explanation for each: Entertainment: Music videos are there the entertain the audience as a supplement for

playing live, this allows the audience to see them and at the same time let the band have break from touring. The band Panic! at the disco has visually appealing videos that are liked to the song, such as the wedding circus form ‘I write sins not tragedies’

Branding/Identity: The style of the music and the video allows the audience to recognize the bands style without much introduction and this means they have a dedicated audience that wont disassociate form the bands music or style. The styles of bands like Little Mix who's music and videos are up beat and colorful, the tome of videos and the song is constant and therefore subconsciously associated with the band.

Sales: Music videos provide the audience with a visual representation of the music and this can encourage them to buy the CD’s as these have the music and videos provided; another thing is that having the video on sites like YouTube, where videos can be pushed onto home pages and ‘what's hot’ pages, can introduce newer fans to the artists.

+Task 1 - Purposes Q2 – What are some of the broader purposes of music videos? Think about some of the

strategies employed by artists in their videos and how they represent themselves, you could consider where the artist is on a major label, independent label of unsigned, is there a difference between them?

Artistic talent: More complicated music videos are used to show the Artists personal view of what the song means, this is done by having the centered with an interesting aesthetic and doing actions that relate; then the effects and over all design are added to the final video. Some artists bring in outside producers to make their video stand out and this cross over also let other artists impact the work.

Blunt advertisement of the Artists and their looks and talent: Main stream music videos have a continuous display of the Artists to ensure that their image is further pushed into the spot light, and then have other images and symbolisms to link what would be an unrelated video to the song.

These are both done by One direction at some point, with videos that consist of them doing an activity with, as an example, random shots of girls to have it relate to the song playing; they also have outside actors and outside influential people to help with the directing and videos story.

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+Task 1 - Purposes Q3 – Describe what is ‘synergy’ is and how it has been used in

music videos [min. 3 examples of synergy and convergence] Synergy: When two ‘brands’ collaborate to make one projects

that will financially benefit both brands when released. This can be when music is introduced into film and TV, or when two artists collaborate on a song and video together.

Justin Timberlake's song ‘Cant stop this feeling’ was put into the movie Trolls and this means that whenever the movie is purchases he gets a cut but also means that the two are related and when people hear it in the movie they associate it to the song and artist, and vise versa.

Collaborations between artists such as Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa collaborative song ‘Young, Wild and Free’ which features Bruno Mars, brings to ‘Brands’ together and this introduces to audiences to the others style and this is done in a hope to expand the audience.

The entire soundtrack for Guardians of the galaxy is derived of mixing popular music of the 1960-70’s, with the most noted being ‘Hooked on a feeling’ by Blue Swede. Doing this brought out a album which would have split profits to all the artists, the providers and the sellers.

+Task 1 - Purposes Q4 – Branding; select an artist you like and look at how they present themselves in

their music videos. Explain what their ‘brand’ is, who is appeals to and why they might have done this.

The majority of music videos made by Panic! at the disco depict dark imagery with specific sources of light that make the whole video have a certain look; ‘The ballad of Mona Lisa’, ‘Emperor's new clothes’, ‘Miss Jackson’ and ‘Victorious’ all have set lighting that appears in each video to fi the theme.

The song ‘Don't threaten me with a good time’ is comprised as a first person view making the whole video very wobbly and relatively trippy as the motion is sped up and unsteady and the camera isn't held in position.

After loosing all but one permanent member the videos now center just around the lead singer, Brendon Urie, and his vision of what the video should be.

+Task 1 - Purposes Q5 – Compare One Direction and Animal Collective

music videos [find them on YouTube!], what can you discern about each act from their videos? What is the main aim? Explain why.

One Direction is a commercialized pop band and therefore are expected to be explicit in the meaning of the song and have videos that are a blatant advertisement of the brand; on the other hand Animal Collective are more abstract in there artistic style that promoted the songs more than the brand by having a non-representative video.

There is a clear difference in budget from both bands; One direction is a clear example of studio involvement as they display a higher budget music video, this shows in their video for ‘History’ which has professional lighting and a clear capture camera. On the other side of the spectrum Animal Collective who's lower budget is evident, such as here video for ‘fire work’ which is all black with flashlight illumination and fire work effects.

+Task 2 – Styles, Techniques and Conventions


Q1 – Describe and explain the use of camerawork in music videos, i.e. the types of shot used with examples to illustrate this

Panic! At the disco’s music video for ‘don’t threaten me with a good time’ uses shaky camera angles at a constant high, this is the desired effect as the video is supposed to be seen from the first person perspective; this means the camera moves as if it is the field of view that you, the viewer, have

As the person in the video gets more drunk the edges of the video blurred as the camera looses focus, however there is always a main focus on the singer. This decision to do this is so that the “asset” is shown to raise the profile. The first person view is completed with movements the audience makes being viewed through the first person view, an example is seeing hands and glasses coming from behind the camera as if it was from the person themselves.

The images are blurred and rapid in motion this is because the club scene is viewed as chaotic; people move faster in clubs so the camera moves fast so that there is the illusion that you are looking at what is going on as if you’re there.


Q2 - Describe and explain the use of editing in music videos, i.e. the types of shot used with examples to illustrate this

The music video for ‘She’s kinda hot’ by Five Seconds Of Summer has the transitions between sections of the video are done, generally, with an instant flick to the next section or angle; however there is also some comic style transitions, an example of this is when the screen splits and opens to reveal the next setting. Spit screens are used on occasion to keep at lease one band member in the screen at the time this is because the bad members are the face of the 5SOS brand. Points in the video are very flashy as they have multiple camera angles flashing around to different angles and distances of the same image the flash transition is generally every other drum beat.

After effects that were put in post production are done in a comic book style to create contrast to the direct images videoed. Some of the images are used to illustrate what is said in the song, such as the low self-esteem bar that appears when the song talks about the lack of self-esteem the ‘character’ has. The comic effects are also extended to exaggerate the actions of the characters in the video; music notes appearing when whistling occurs, noise effects when two objects are hit together and symbols appearing when (muted in the video) shouting is happening are some of the ways the ‘characters’ actions get exaggerated in the video. Animations appear throughout the video these are random and generally animals that have nothing to do with the scene that is presented.


Q3 - Describe and explain some of the technical developments in music videos, i.e. the types of shot used with examples to illustrate this

Young thugs video for ‘Wyclef Jean’ is the most viewed video on his channel and is an example of a non-representational video. The crew spent the day filming and waiting for Young thug to arrive however he was a no show, this meant they only had the videos of the models and the kids doing the activities that they were set up to do anyway with the parts that Young thug was set to do being either disregarded or edited over with what the director wanted to do with him; this meant the video has a lot of random shots of models and a few with crew members. Only a small amount of Young thug’s face was added into the final video away from the set and not by the actual director filmed this.

There are shot of black screens with white writing over the top and these are a mixture of commentary, thoughts and what the original plan was. The director does this to show his distaste of what happened; Ryan Staake had white markings added over some images to show the outline of where the artist would have been or to add visual comments on the video such as to call out the physics of an object or point out a fact for the video. At points of the video audio is added over the top which is Young thug talking about what he wanted for the video and as he does the images n the screen change to what is being said. As different people talk there are different fonts and colours to represent the people and these go over the top of the previous if there is a discussion going on. There is a section were the lyrics are shown on screen to prove a point and there is a prompt to show you what is being said at that second.

There are quick shots of the original pitch of the video which only lasts two or three seconds but is a power point on the plan Ryan Staake originally was going to do before the plan for the video was finalized. There is also a sketch of what there was going to be as part of the video and how it was changed to be more appropriate. After the shoot the director, Ryan Staake, was asked to have the girls in red bikinis, but this was after the shoot, so he said he would fix it in post production, the final result of this is shown as shabby editing of colour and shows the annoyance at the demand.

+Task 2 – Styles, Techniques and Conventions Q4 – Genre conventions; often music videos adhere to genre conventions within their visual style and production techniques. Select a recognizable genre and use illustrations to explain what their genre conventions are…

The alternative rock genera is a category that has many great bands fall within its parameters and has a distinct style of video that accompanies it. A component of these videos are the live band performance that occurs at least once in most videos The Killers song ‘Somebody told me’ is all live performances cutting to and form different settings, mainly a beach, to give the effect of an oxymoron of control and chaos.

Alternative rock videos have generally got one of 2 themes, 1) disturbing imagery or 2) sensual undertones, Predominantly the latter. Artic Monkey song ‘Do I wanna know’ has the most clear-cut evidence of this as it has sound waves that clearly become women implicated in a sexual manor, the video also does this with the disturbing images however less so.


Q5 - John Stuart’s description of the music video “incorporating, raiding and reconstructing” is essentially the essence of intertextuality [something asserted by Andrew Goodwin]. Can you explain what intertextuality is and find some examples of it in music videos?

Intertextuality is the use of a media references onto another form of media, such as parodies, references and homages to films that appear in Tv shows.

The song ‘just like fire’ is a homage to Alice through the looking glass. With sections of direct references such as the falling into a cherry blossom tree from high above. Other references are: the blue butterfly, walking through the mirror, chess board fight, tea party and the asylum. There is also direct sections of the movie with the jabberwocky having a split second appearance in a fast motion section.

This song was written for the movie Alice through the looking glass and therefor they wanted to have it link to the movie, unlike other songs for movies that have a video separate from the Film it is in.

+Task 3 – Case Study

+Task 3 – Case Study‘Heroes (We Could Be)’ - Alesso This video is from the pop genera style and has

the conventional aspects of a video that you would expect to see: representation of the brand/ artist that they are trying to sell, the direct illustration of the song that is still entertaining to watch, and an intertextuality that links to comic books such as X-men where the characters display feats of inhuman abilities.

The video has shaky camera movements and jump cuts that give of the appearance of chaos however they are controlled enough to not ruin the overall video. Post production also added in the effects that make the characters appear to have powers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7SouU3ECpU



+Task 3 – Case Study’Rock & Roll’ - Eric Hutchinson This song is a representational video with the

main purpose of entertaining the viewer while not distracting form the song itself, the video only really consists of following the artist as he moves/ walks down a street casually interacting with the people walking on said street.

The main technique used in this video is that of the travel camera and close up jump shots, but other than that there is barely any post production used in this video; this fits the videos genera of casual pop as it doesn’t go full on like a pop bands video but still retains the genera up beat tones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm5TZX5hz3g



+Task 3 – Case Study’Jar Of Hearts’ - Christina Perri This song is a sad pop song by style and tone

and the video matches that by the use of the stereo typical representation of a brand and the direct illustration of the meaning behind the words.

The music video takes great advantage of camera angles using low and high shots to reflect each point in the song depending of the power the song directs her to have; there is also multiple uses of wide travel shots and close ups. The post production has added effect that are exact illustrations of the direct wording and meaning of the song, thought the lyrics mean it in a metaphorical sense the video shows it in a physical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v_4O44sfjM




Education

Music Video Case Study