As "Mahogany Drum" are an indie band I decided start researching similar bands and their music videos. One very interesting music video I found was by the very liked indie band "Bombay Bicycle Club" their song called "Shuffle". Here is the link for you to take a look.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFI2BPVxt-s.
The artist has decided to be very basic by having no narrative and featuring no people or themselves in the video. However the video is very interesting by the technical use of stop frame animation in which lyrics are uncovered. The artist may have done this to exaggerate and draw attention to his lyrics. In my opinion it does that very well and I have remembered the lyrics from just a few watches. Not only that but I think its a stylish music video that is very interesting by how the words appear for example, twenty two seconds in when the dirt removes itself in a unnatural way and I find myself being very entertained.
However I think band are almost being a little arrogant how they ignore the convention of appearing in their own music video. This may be because they are already famous and do not feel they need to appear to make their video entertaining and feel they do not need the self publicity or recognition because their name is recognizable enough.
As my band is just starting up and this is their first song I feel I must use them in my music video. So if I am to use the stop flow animation convention I will only feature it for a small part, for example just the chorus because I thought it was a unique interesting way to show lyrics.
Feel free to post your opinions of this music video as it will be good to get some audience feedback. Do you think the use of the stop frame animation convention is good or bad?
This is a video I made and published on YouTube about the media theorist Michael Shore.
Michael Shore Michael Shore believes a music video is one or more of the following..
recycled styles … surface without substance … simulated experience … information overload … image and style scavengers … ambivalence … decadence … immediate gratification … vanity and the moment … image assaults and outré folks … the death of content … anesthetization of violence thorough chic … adolescent male fantasies … speed, power, girls and wealth … album art come to turgid life … classical storytelling’s motifs … soft-core pornography … clichéd imagery …
This list was taken from Sven E Carlsson's perspective on music video analysis document. Below are a few example of Michael Shore's list..
The music video to Ed Sheeran's song The A Team is an example of decadence. Decadence is a state of deterioration, in this video a person who has fallen into a decadent state of mental or moral decay. Decadence can mean morally corrupt or self indulgent.
T.I's music video of his song Whatever You Like is an example of speed, power, wealth and girls. The music video features fast cars, private jets, big houses, jewels, money and girls. This lifestyle is also an example of an adolescent male fantasy.
T.I's music video is also an example of clichéd imagery. The shots of the girl sat on her bed in her room at night deciding weather to call the man is a cliché scene used in film and music videos often.
Surface without substance means lyrics which have nothing to do with the on screen video. An example of this is Artic Monkeys music video of their song Fluorescent Adolescent. In this the song lyrics are about a girl and the video is just clowns and civilians fighting.
Shakira's music video to her song She Wolf is an example of soft core porn. You do not see any sexual body parts but the video is very revealing and she acts in a sexual nature. Modern Mythic Embodiment Sven E Carlsson has a thoery about artists which he calls “modern
mythic embodiment”. He thinks artists “embody one or a combination of modern
mythic characters in music videos”. His
three types of performances in which he thinks describes an artist are
commercial exhibitionists, electronic shaman and televised bard.
Commercial exhibitionists are artists who
try to sell their own body, attractiveness, style, face, record label,
hairstyles, fashion, voice etc. and perform in the spotlight to try to gain
popularity, stardom and success. One major example of a commercial
exhibitionist is the modern Lady Gaga. Her videos have hundreds of millions of
views. I have chosen to look at her video Telephone which features Beyoncé
another big example of a commercial exhibitionist.
The first example of commercial exhibitionist in the video is the high sexuality she try's to get across. She does this by acting in a sexual nature by kissing another woman and dressing the cast in sexual revealing costumes, she specifically is wearing only underwear at one point.
The next example is a very cliché and is used in a majority of commercial exhibitionist music videos. The artist is dancing to the camera with an entourage of other dancers all dancing in sync to her, this happens multiple times in the video.
The shots below of the artists looking into the camera singing and posing is a prime example of how the director has used close up shots to try to sell the star.
Lady Gaga has a very unique obscure style which she try's to get across as a commercial exhibitionists, I think she try's to get get her various styles across to the audience such as woman power, rebellious, outrageous, high charisma, unique, weird and random and very individual. She gets these styles across by her unique fashion and the costumes she wears, the fact there are very few men in the whole video and the narrative shows women as stronger and conspiring against men and Lady Gaga and Beyoncé even murder people. The occasional use of strong language, the setting of being in a jail and being wanted by the police. Her videos are also very long and have parts of extended narrative were she does very random things like kisses another woman.
Electronic Shaman is described by Carlsson as "a guide on a spiritual journey through blipping and magical attributes". It means the artist or music video is doing something out this world or magic, things that wouldn't happen in real life.
My example is The Maccabees music video Feel To Follow. In this video people float/fly in the sky into space. This is an example of electronic shaman, they have used it because it shows the journey of people who are following something.
Televised Bard is the singer telling a story. Sometimes the artists acts in the story sometimes the story is just told through images. My example is Eminem's music video Mockingbird. In this video he is telling a story about his children, he used real footage to tell the story. He also acts in the video watching the real footage. The footage on screen matches that of the lyrics.
Visual Music Styles
Sven E Carlsson visual music video styles are categorised. A standard clip has more visual traditions than one. It can be a filmed performance, narrative clip and art clip. An example of a standard music video is Queen's music video Bohemian Rhapsody.
A performance clip is mostly filmed performance, the performance can be song, dance or instrumental. It does not have to be live performance. An example of a performance music video would be some of Michael Jackson's videos which contain dance performance.
A narrative clip is a visual story that is easy to follow. Bruce Springsteen's music video to his song Im On Fire is an example of a narrative clip.
A art clip is a clip with no narrative and no singing lip syncing. Some examples of art clips are below. An example of an art clip video is Lisa Stanfield's video So Natural.
Andrew Goodwin
Andrew Goodwin is a media theorist who
has identified his own theory of what he thinks are the key aspects of a music
video. His first point is the relationship
between the visuals and lyrics. He believes a music video visuals either
illustrate, meaning the images illustrate the meaning of the lyrics. Or
amplify, which means continuously repeated into the viewers mind. Or are contradicting,
which means the visuals go against or ignore the lyrics.
Similarly the relationship between the
visuals and music. The visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the
music.
Goodwin says another key aspect is self
imagery. Who is the star of the imagery? And how they use multiple close ups of
the main artist or star, and lots of looking into the camera and self
publicity.
Voyeurism is the practice of obtaining sexual gratification by looking at sexual
objects or acts.
Goodwin believes voyeurism is a major aspect of a music video.
Andrew Goodwin also says a music video
may have intertextuality to
provide further gratification to the audience.
He also says an audience can simply like
or dislike a music video through the individual audio-viewers musical
taste.
The band I will be using are called Mahogany Drum. They are a band from my school, Cox Green School. The song I will be using is the first song they have made. Mahogany Drum consist of four members a lead singer, bass player, guitar player and a drummer. They are an indie rock band. Indie is a shorter word for independent, indie music is produced independently from major commercial record labels. In modern times indie is used as if it is a music genre. Indie artists music usually create music that can be categorised in various genres. My band can fit into such genres as indie rock, folk, alternative rock and indie pop. They are more prominently an indie rock band. The reason why they are an indie rock band is because of the style of their music. Indie bands have been around since the start of the 1980's. It was in the early 2000's when indie rock has been very mainstream in North America and The United Kingdom and other countries in Europe. I think my bands target audience age would be between 16-33. I think my band are young and a developing talent and want to appeal to audiences their own age.
I have got information to back up my target audience age rating by researching similar bands music videos on YouTube and using the video statistics they offer. For example I found for The Vaccines song I Always Knew had been watched around 300,000 times, the average age was for females was 13-24 and the average age for males was 25-34. It was watched the most in Italy, Ireland and the UK. After researching various other indie rock bands I came to the conclusion of the average age of 16-33 year old. I think the audience are both male and female audiences. I think if I was looking into the life of someone from my target audience they would like going to festivals, listening to the radio, buying bands CD's or downloading them, be quite in touch with the music they like, read music magazines, be a student, part time or full time work.
I am going to research conventions and theorists in my upcoming blogs, I will then decide what conventions I will use that are suitable for an indie rock music video. Jack
A music video is a film which accompanies a song, they are made for promotional or artistic purposes. Music video's started in 1984, of course not like the modern videos you see today, the 1984 music video was a collection of still images which were projected onto a screen whilst the live performance was happening. It was Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern who decided to make the first music video to their song The Little Lost Child, it would be George Thomas who made their vision come onto the screen.
In 1902, it would be Leon Gaumont who made the next step in music video history. The phonoscene was the first sound film, it was a chronophone sound recording with a chronograph film with actors lip syncing. This was the first sign of the convention lip syncing that you now see in a vast amount of music videos.The last phonoscene video was in 1917.
In the years after 1917 as technology developed so did music videos. In 1926 many more musical short films were being produced and music videos started to feature the bands, artists and dancers. In 1929 Bessie Smith made a two reel called St. Louis Blues and it was one of the first dramatized music videos. In 1930 Max Fleischer an animation artist created a series of sing a long short cartoons. It was in 1940 when Walt Disney made an cartoon film to a classical music piece. The increase in television lead to more music videos being made. In 1959 Tony Bennett's music video of his song Stranger In Paradise was played on television in the UK and US. He then claimed his video was the first ever music video.
It would be The Beatles in the 1950's-1960's with their videos of A Hard Days Night, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever that took a move into how modern videos are today. They started to construct narrative and visual vocabulary in their music videos, and started to use conventions, shots, lighting and editing from films.
Again it would be the increase in technology that developed music videos even more. By the 1970's and 1980's there was an increase in colour television and the technology of cameras and filming was becoming a lot more advanced. Around this time artists were producing bigger and better music videos for commercial and promotion of themselves, this led to a lot more money being invested into music videos.
Some examples of music videos which changed music video history in this era are Alfred Yankovic's music video Weird Al Yankovic, which brought humour into music videos. Michael Jacksons Thriller which introduced extended narrative and making your music video into a short film. And Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer music video which introduced using special effects and animation.
Once again it is the increase in technology that has developed music videos even further. The introduction of the MTV channel which showed music videos all around the world. Coming to the most recent years when internet was introduced which connected mass audiences across the world. The introduction of YouTube, Google Videos, Facebook and iTunes has made music videos very commercial and profitable and available to a mass audience. According to NME magazine the most viewed YouTube video is Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris, Baby, with a total of 549 million views! And this is just one video on one website, Billions of views are occurring across the web each day.
Jack
Friday 21 September 2012
To all readers, feel free to comment on my posts it would be much appreciated! :)
