Development of Technical codes

The key innovation in the development of modern music video was of course, video recording & editing processes, along with the development of a number of related effects such as chroma-key of green/blue screen.

     Chroma key in use

Weather forecast

The advent of high quality colour videotape recorders & portable video cameras enabled many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply, in comparison to the relatively high cost of using film.

In the 1990s, a number of technical codes became common:

• Most common form of editing associated with the music promo is fast cut montage
• Many images impossible to grasp on first viewing thus ensuring multiple viewing
• Split screens, colourisation are also commonly used effects
• Non-representational techniques, in which the musical artist is never shown,become more common
• Lack of edits, long take/Steadicam also a common experimentation



Categories of music videos

Although there are many categories for music videos, the 3 most common are:

• Performance based videos- band or artist is playing the song throughout the video

Europe- Final countdown

• Narrative based videos- song involves a narrative & the words and meaning of the song are acted out

Tom Petty- Free fallin

• Concept based- focus on a specific idea and are unique. They can often lack a storyline, mostly random and rarely link to the band or theme of the song

Spice girls- wannabe

However there are other categories aswell such as:

• Mixture- The musician plays as well as the narrative storyline while the camera cross cuts between the two

• Cameo- The musician(s) features in the video but is not part of the storyline

• Animation/Surreal- can be a fully animated video or half and half, which is creative and entertaining

Music video for 'Take on me' by A-Ha which looks like a comic book

• Interpretive- something that looks like something else but has a different meaning (normally based on own interpretation)

• Parody- meant to mock other music videos

Blink 182- All the small things- mocking the boy band 'Backstreet boys '

Audience behaviour: Dyer, Goodwin & Mulvey

Richard Dyers Utopian Solutions Theory

• This solution gives people a choice of compensation for the inadequacies in their own lives
• An example of this solution being put to use would be if we tried using an Anti-smoking campaign: there would be clear motives that we could offer based on Dyers solution. e.g. gain money, understanding the facts, gain energy, join a quiet club

Andrew Goodwin's Theory of music videos

Andrew Goodwin writing in 'Dancing in the distraction factory' ( Rousledge 1992)

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics

• e.g. Stage performance in mental videos, dance routine for boy/girl band (as seen below with the 'The Backstreet boys'), aspiration in hip hop 

Backstreet boys- All I have to give

2. There is a relationship between lyrics & visuals. The lyrics are represented with images ( either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)

e.g. The lyrics 'Baby your a firework, come on let your colours burst' followed by an image of fireworks bursting out of her body 

3. There is a relationship between music & visuals. The tone & atmosphere of the visual reflects that of the music

           ( either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting )

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist & the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work

      These include:

• Close ups (CUs) of the stars face
• iconography of the band image
• visual trademarks & motifs

           For instance in all of Madonnas videos theres a close up of her face and her signature look

Dress you up 

Like a virgin



Papa don't preach

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking

            

           ( screens within screens, mirrors, stages, telescopes etc.)

e.g. Katy Perry's California girls shows voyeuristic treatment of the female body

6. There are often intertextuality reference to films, TV programmes, other music videos etc..

       e.g. UB40 'Cant help falling in love' it was the soundtrack for the film 'Sliver'

                            Audience & Audience Theory: Feminist Film Theory & Audiences

Laura Mulvey: Visual pleasure & Narrative Cinema (1975)

1. Cinema reflects society
2. Therefore cinema reflects a patriarchal society
3. How does a patriarchal society manifest itself in cinema?

Erotic desire

Mulvey argues that women have two roles in film:

1. As an object of erotic desire for the characters
2. As an object of erotic desire for the audience

The virgin / whore dichotomy

Women are only portrayed as one of two possibilities.

1. A virginal innocent character
2. A sexy "whore" 

The Male Gaze  

• The 'gaze' of the camera is the male 'gaze'
• The male gaze is active, the female passive









• Within the narrative, male characters direct their gaze towards the female characters
• The spectator is made to identify with the male gaze, because the camera films from the optical as well as the libidinal point of view of the male character
• Thus three levels of the cinematic gaze- camera, character & spectator- that objectify the female character ( the triple gaze)

Intertextuality in music videos

What is intertextuality and why is it used?

Intertextuality refers to the way a text (written or seen) is shaped by other texts that have come before it. Adverts and music videos use it the most in order to obtain a certain reaction from their target audiences or in the music video sense, its used just for show. It may appeal to an audience of people who liked the original, and want to see how it has been used, and they may or may not like it. However the connotation of the old text may overshadow the connotation of the new text.

Examples

The influence of video games will predominate for the younger audience with the more plasticised look of characters emerging ( e.g. Robbie Williams 'Let love be your energy' directed by Olly Reed in 2001 & The Red Hot Chilli Peppers 'Californiacation' directed by Jonathan Drayton & Valerie Faris.

Robbie Williams let love be your energy

Red hot chilli peppers- Californiacation

Intertextuality & Cinema

Directors who started with music videos include:

• David Fincher: Madonna Vogue & express yourself
  
  
• Spike Jonze: Fatboy slim- Praise you
  
  
• Michel Gondry: Bjork & Foo fighters



Jhon Stuarts description of the music video "incorporating, raiding & reconstruction" is essentially the essence of intertextuality.

• From Madonna's 'Material girl' ( Mary Lambert 1980 drawing on 'Diamonds are a girls best friend' ) 2Pac & Dr Dre's 'California love' (Hype Williams 1996, drawing on 'Mad Max') there are many examples of cinematic references which dominate music video.

Madonna- material girl (1984)

Gentlemen prefer blondes (1953)

Robert Palmer- Addicted to love (1986)

Shania Twain- I feel like a woman (1999)

Stuart goes on to say that using something familiar to the audience may generate both potentially nostalgic associations and new meanings. 

Most evident in music videos e.g. Madness 'Our house' and Kid British 'Our house is dadless'

Intertextuality: Madness- Our house

In this video there's evidence of intertextuality when the band is sitting in front of the TV in a dark room moving their heads in all directions. 

• Madness- Our house

This is taken from Queens 1975 hit Bohemian Rhapsody

• Queen- Bohemian Rhapsody  

There's also intertextuality at the beginning of Kid British 'Our hose is dadless' which samples Madness 'Our house' throughout

• Kid British- Our house is dadless

Use of intertextuality in my groups music video?

Since the music video my group plan on doing will be based on society and changes etc. I thought of using a segment from Tupac- Changes and incorporating it into our music video during the editing stages.

Tupac- changes

I'm thinking that we could take pics and videos of all the things happening in society in the past and future and making it one image of our choice that would relate to the video.

Media theories

                                                              Media Theories


1.   Effects theory (hypodermic syringe inoculation)- what the media do to audiences...

2.   Reception theory- Nationwide audiences (e.g Dallas, Seinfield etc..) & What the audience do to the media...

3.   Uses and Gratifications- what audiences do with the media...

Effects theory (hypodermic syringe inoculation)- what the media do to audiences...
    

• Mass media/mass communications make people powerless to resist messages the media carries
• consumers are "drugged, addicted or hypnotised"
• Effect theories taken up with protection of young link between violence & the media

 

Historical stuff

• Frankfurt school: Marxist German intellectuals reaching against Nazi propaganda & US advertising- suggested the power of big corporations & the state to control how we think

• Rise of TV in the 50s & 60s- fear of danger to children
• Influence of behavioural scientist (think of Pavlovs dogs)- media may reinforce attitudes through repetition
• Bobo doll experiments (1963) - Bandura & Walters- Children imitate adult treatment of doll seen on film

                                               


Effects Theories

• Moral Panics: concern, hostility, consensus, dis-proportionality, volatility

• 2 step flow: 

                      MEDIA TEXT-----> OPINION LEADERS-----> MEDIA CONSUMERS

                                  ^                                                                            ^

                                 1                            ------------------------->          2

What's wrong with Effect Theories?

• The problems with violence are often social/psychological not to do with the media
• The media can be positive rather than harmful
• Criticism of the media using the effects model is often politically motivated
• There is not real grounding of research & theory for this model

Reception Theory: Stuart Hall

The meaning of texts are not passively accepted by an audience, but the individual reader comes up with his/her own meaning of the text based on what cultural and life experiences they've had. Hall stressed the role of social positioning in the interpretation of mass media texts by different social groups. He suggested three hypothetical interpretative codes or positions for the reader of a text. 

• Preferred/Dominant reading- Producers encode texts which the reader then decodes. Interpretations vary from each individual, however producers can write things which allocate the reader to create agreements on what certain codes mean.

• Opposition reading- The audience rejects the preferred reading and creates there own view or meaning.

• Negotiated reading- A compromise between the dominant and oppositional reading. The audience accepts part of the directors views but also have their own view

Uses and Gratifications- what audiences do with the media...

• Users of the media use media texts to satisfy certain needs
• Based on Maslows Hierarchy of needs as seen below:

   

Problems of U&G



• We may not have a choice about what we watch
• Neglects any aspects of effects theories
• Neglects socio-economic factors



Direct effect theory

• These theories view the media as having a direct effect on the ideas, attitudes & behaviours of the audience
• One of the hypodermic syringe theory

Hypodermic Syringe

• Assumes the audience are passive and that all members of the audience group are the same and respond in different ways
• It's this theory that blames texts for specific events

'Demonised media text' e.g. the 80s horror film 'Childs play'

• Childs play (1988) was blamed for influencing the murder of James Bulger
• Marilyn Manson was blamed for the Columbine High School shootings
• The director of Natural Born Killers was sued for inciting violence although the case was later dismissed

Cultivation Theory

• This theory considers the way the media affects attitudes rather than behaviour
• The media is seen as part of our socialisation process
• Through repetition attitudes, ideas, & values may become 'normalised' or 'naturalised'

Because of the media, many groups are targeted, mainly in negative ways such as Fat people, Youths and middle Easterns.

Copyright permission letter

This is the copy right letter I have produced as a form of a proof that I'm requesting permission from the music company to use their track for my music video. Copyright approval is essential as its someone else's property.