The original purpose of the music videos is to advertise the artist's specified song in order to boost its sales as well as the artist's reputation.
The music video provides a different source musical entertainment through the us of visuals and at times is also used to reinforced the outrageous of the artists. For example Lady Gaga.
Andrew Goodwin is an Australian born operatic tenor. He began learning how to play the violin at the age of 5 and then went onto learn how to play the piano and organ when singing at St.Andrews cathedral. So he was brought up with his life revolved around music and this could have edged his thoughts.
Goodwin identifies 5 key aspects of music videos that we the audience should look out for
which are:
Though beats ( seeing the sound)
Narrative performance
Star image
Relation of visuals of the song
Technical aspect of the video
Though beats
First step is to look at the music itself. We must take into account the structure of the song for example the chorus and the verses.
Secondly the voice of the song. The artists voice is extremely unique and can form identification or trademarks that work well with star image. Roland Barthes theory of the Grain of voice can be related to this. He sees the singing voice as an expressive instrument and therefore able make associations of it's own.
Thirdly, Goodwin also points out the artists mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories and the storyteller, making the music video a two communication device, them telling us a story and us listening.
Narrative performance
Goodwin says that we tend to make up our own idea of messages being sent in a song from a basic understanding of what it may actually be about.
Music videos should be of the same standard every time, narrative and performance work together in order to keep the audience interested and not bored of a music videos.
Goodwin believes that miming is still the most popular thing done in music videos today but however it is in the artists best interest to make it look as real as possible to the audience.
Star Image
Star image is vital aspect of music videos.
Artists want to obviously look unique in order to stay current and for audience to remember them. This star image develops overtime and plays a big role in the production process of music videos.
Relation of visuals of the song
Goodwin believes that there are three ways music videos work to promote to songs:
Illustrate: Music videos set certain images to illustrate the meaning of their songs lyrics and genre.
Amplify: Repeatability, meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly reinforced and shown through video and drummed into our vision.
Dis-juncture: This is where the meaning of the song is completely ignored
Technical aspect of the video
Technical aspect of the video holds the music video together so its very important.
Speed, camera movement, editing, cutting and post production are all forms of 'use of camera'.
Lighting and colour 'help set the mood' and adds emphasis on key/dramatic moments and adds extra effect.
Mise-en-scene, the setting is vital. It needs to look realistic in order to look professional appealing to a wider target audience.
Beats- the cuts and the beats go with the rhythm in order to make the video more entertaining. People like music that sounds good and not like it has just been thrown altogether.
In this video for ‘Crazy In Love’ By Beyonce and Jay Z there are many genre related characteristics. This song is your typical RNB/Hip Hop song, and to demonstrate this, immediately at the beginning of the video Jay Z is in a fast car, wearing a hat and a gold chain. These are stereotypical features of someone who would sing this specific genre. Following on from this Beyonce is then in revealing clothing, performing a provocative dance, which again is more RNB/Hip Hop as it is a fast paste street dance style. When the song approaches the chorus Beyonce and a group of girls are all wearing track suits and hats performing street dance, which again are popular aspects of the RNB genre. Also in this particular video, the meaning of the song is in fact ignored (disjuncture), as the song talks about being in love but the video shows Beyonce dancing in a provocative manor. Towards the end of the video Jay Z and Beyonce appear together when he begins his rap. He is just standing looking directly into the camera whilst Beyonce dances around him, again no relation to the song. Both stars are constantly looking into the camera throughout the music video, this breaks the fourth wall and makes the audience feel as if the star is singing to them individually. On top of this as Beyonce is acting in a provocative manor is comes across more shocking so draws the audience in more. As I mentioned earlier Beyonce is extremely well known for her great body, and constantly in this music video there is close ups of her legs, her bum and her face whilst she is doing something sexual, for example licking her lips or pouting. This is amplifying because is is repeated constantly throughout the video to manipulate the course of the music video and the audience. And lastly the record company use a large amount of close ups on both Beyonce and Jay Z, as you can see it opens immediately with a close up of Jay Z, and there are many close ups of Beyonce’s face and body. This is related to star image and the demands of the record label company. Overall, the music video to ‘crazy in love’ clearly does have aspects of Andrew Goodwin’s theory constantly throughout.
Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ also supports Goodwin’s idea of lyrics and visuals. The music video has definite visuals that link to the lyrics of the song. Whilst the lyrics are about having a bad romance or relationship, the video simply symbolizes this. For example Lady Gaga is being pulled around aggressively, this could imply violence/domestic abuse in her relationship. She is also quite clearly forced to drink alcohol, this could easily symbolize alcohol or drug abuse and even pressure from her lover to do these harmful things. On top of this there is also visuals that imply Lady Gaga is being sold as a prostitute, could this as well suggest her lover is selling her or paying for her? All of these factors tie together to create exactly what she states in her lyrics a ‘bad romance’, therefore the lyrics and the visuals successfully match up.
The key development of modern music video was the recording and editing process. As high quality colour videotapes recorders and portable video cameras were produced. this enables many pop acts to produced promotional video again in the following weeks. As Michael Jackson was the first to create a short film for his music video, that has a begining, middle and an end in 'Billie Jean' and then in a 'west side story'.
Music Videos Today
Now, music videos have become commonplace in the music industry meaning that every song that makes it into the charts has a music video made.
sometimes the popularity of the video is enough to propel the song into the top 10.
Songs that have been in the top because of it video popularity:
Modern music videos were originally made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sales of music recordings
They are often known as "Promos"
In 1894, sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern worked with electrician George Thomas and Various performers to promote sales of their song "The Little Lost Child:. Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen using a magic lantern. The images were simultaneous to live performances. This technique became a population form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step towards music video.
In 1926, technology developed and many musical short filmed were produced. These were called "Talkies". They were produced using the vita-phone system where the sound wasn't printed onto the actual film, but onto a separate 16inch (40cm) disk and later 12 inch (30cm) phonograph disc at a 33 1/3 rpm, a speed first used for this process. These short films would lasted for around 6 minutes.
Micheal Jackson was the first the first to create the idea of a short film- A music video with a beginning, middle and end.
Sing along short cartoons called "Screen Songs" invited the audience to sing along to popular songs. The lyrics would be shown at the bottom of the screen and an animated bouncy ball would bounce over the words as the artist sang them. This would encourage the audience to learn the words of the artists music helping promote the artist to a wider ranged audience. Also cartoons from early 1930's featured musicians of the time performing their hit singles on-camera in live action segments during the cartoons.
The Beatles were massive stars of the 1960's and were able to produce their own feature films starring "The Beatles". This era was where music became an industry. As artist couldn't tour particularly at this point, so they were a great way for audience's to see the stars they admire abd help promote The Beatles music globally by playing their films in cinemas. They brought out three succesful films, 'Help!' 'Hard Day's Night' and 'Magical Mystery Tour'. The Beatles rejected the old values and brought something new to the table .
These features films displayed a develope in cinematography with the use of close-ups, zooms pans and establishing shots. In 'Magical Mystery Tour' they used special effects such as split screen and edited through the use of fades and montage editing. They showed a lack of continuity editing and realism.
1970s
In the UK the importance of top of the pops to promote a single created an environment of innovation and competition amongst bands and record labels as the show's producers placed strict limits on the number of videos it would use...Therefore a good video would increase a song's sales.
Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody also started a whole new era for using music videos as promos.
1980s
1981- MTV is launched. The first video to be aired was buggles, 'video killed the radio star'
David Bowie scored his first uk number one in nearly a decade thanks to his catchy promo for 'Ashes to Ashes'
Artists began to use more sophisticated effects in their videos and added a storyline or concept to the video
Narrative based music video
A video consisting mainly of a storyline relating to the lyrics and genre of the song. This is a good technique to use for engaging the audience.
This type of video is often used for songs that features in films, with scenes from the film cut into the video.
An example of this is Bruno Mars 'it will rain' video. This is the twilight breaking dawn soundtrack. This includes footage from the film being played through a projector in the video.
Performance based music video:
Performance based music videos features the band and artist performing either to the camera or to an audience live. This is a popular technique rock bands use as there concerts are usually high energy and there is more interest for a viewer to watch the band perform as a whole rather an artist on their own.
'30 seconds to mars-closer to the edge' is a good example of this. The video features footage of the band playing different venues on there tour cut together to make the video.
Spectacle based music video:
Music videos that do not tell a story in linear fashion, but rather create a mood, a feeling to be evoked in the experience of viewing. Its usually artistic.
Camera:
Camera shots usually jump a lot from long shots to close ups and extreme close ups. The close ups are usually on the lead singer and the band and the extreme close ups are of the singer lip synching.
Camera Movement: Whip pans, fast dolly tracks and fast overhead crane shots to follow the running, walking or dancing of performers.
Editing:
Various terms: jump cutting, montage editing. Jump cuts is the predominant editing technique used in music videos. This is because this allows a sudden change from one scene to another. Similarly, transition such as fade and dissolve are very common in music videos as they create a different effect to cuts.
Lighting:
Expressive lighting a key features of music videos. Extreme artificial light to create the "Bleaching" effect on pop starts faces (making them seem ageless). Also the use of switching from colour to black and white or sepia to indicate a shift from chorus to verse.
CGI is also a popular use in music videos to create futuristic sets and brightly coloured backgrounds which is mainly used in mainstream music as they have the big budgets for their videos.
Mise-en-scene:
This refers to the arrangement of performers and props on stage or in a scene for a production of a music video. Mise-en-scene puts importance on the representation of something for example, "Mad" buyNe-yo. The mise-en-scene involves him walking down a road alone, being in an isolation room. This reflects the isolation from his lover. Props included were hats and dark clothes which represent the down mood of the song. The lighting is kept very dark as its is black and white. This connotes the angry depressed mood.
It is extremely difficult to specify one finite definition of a music video as they are so vast and varied. Concisely it is a short film that is designed to promote a song, artist or album. Alternatively, a definition found on Wikipedia states that ' A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings.
Since MTV, a television channel created to play music videos, was first aired in 1981, music videos have become extremely prominent. prior to this, music videos that were created were known as 'illustrated songs' or 'film clips' Music videos used a wide range of styles of film making techniques including animations, non-live action filming, documentaries and non- narrative approaches such as abstract film. Some music videos blend different styles such as animation and live action. There are no specific rules in which a music video must follow, they can be as creative and disjunctive as the producer chooses.
This is an example of a music video that is very creative.
A2 Media involves planning, designing, creating and evaluating a music video. I will transfer the skills I've learnt from the AS course into this project to ensure the best possible outcome for the video
Alongside the music video I'll be creating a digipack (CD packaging)
The original purpose of the music videos is to advertise the artist's specified song in order to boost its sales as well as the artist's reputation.
