Timeline.

1991: Madonna- Justify My Love.

1999: Fatboy Slim- Praise You.

Timeline.

1986: Dire Straits- Money for Nothing.

1990: Madonna- Vogue.

Timeline.

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1954: Elvis Presley- That's All Right.

1983: Michael Jackson- Thriller.

Timeline: Music Video History

Intertextuality #2

Another song that consists of intertextuality is Madonna's song called 'material girl'.
Madonna has been noted to say that at the time of when this song came about it was similar to her life's situation.

The music video mimics Marilyn Monroe's performance of the song 'diamonds are a girls best friend' from the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. In the scenes that she mimics her, they are among scenes of a Hollywood director trying to win the heart of an actress, played by Madonna herself.

Intertextuality #1

The point of intertextuality is parody, to mock, comment on and trivialise the original work. For example in Eminem's music video to the song 'we made you' he mocks many celebrities such as Jessica Simpson, he even makes it obvious that he is referring to her by saying her name in the lyrics. He goes on to talk about Ellen DeGeneres and refers to Elvis and has 50 Cent appear in the video. He gets a girl to dress up like Amy Winehouse and makes her look like a mess, this is his was of him mocking these celebrities and the main message behind this song is that 'we made you'. And i think that he got his point across very clearly.

Director: Michael Bay

Michael Bay graduates from university and spent most of his early years working on advertisements and music videos.

His first projects after film school were in the music video business. He created music videos for many well known artists such as: Tina Turner, Lionel Richie and Donny Osmond.

His work won many awards and a number of MTV nominations.

Bay is well known for his intense slow motion shots of characters and he has the camera moving during most scenes and it is very rare to come across him using static shots. He is also known for using lightflashes to enhance scenes.

Bay on set of  his film Transformers with Shia LaBeouf

Director: Dave Meyer

Meyer graduated from university and got a degree in film production and philosophy. He then worked his way through the production companies such as Paramount and Fox before filming his first music video.

Dave Meyer has directed over 200 music videos of artists including: P!nk, Shakira, Kelly Clarkson, Jay-Z, Britney Spears, Katy Perry and many more well established artists.

Thanks to him artists, for example P!nk, have come to win awards such as Grammy's  for their music videos.

From left: Dave Meyer, Jermaine Dupri and Bow Wow

Star Image Group Presentation on Rihann

Goodwin Essay

Goodwin

The music video I am analysing is called ‘without you’ and it is by a rock band called Hinder. This band not only comes under rock, but also hard rock, post-grunge and glam metal. However this particular song seems to be more of a pop-rock song. In this music video the characters do not have the ‘rock’ image at all, in fact the girl is seen to be very sweet and the boy is seen to be the usual high school bad boy. This video is the complete opposite to what you’d expect a rock band to produce. The story of this music video revolves around high school kids and love.

Goodwin’s theory suggested that within a music video, lyrics will make a constant reference to visuals on screen, and will reinforce what the lyrics say. For example the music video I am analysing is Hinder ‘without you’. In this the performance is not a dance, however is a little story and this visual story reinforces the lyrics. In this music video the lyrics make a constant reference to the visuals on screen. For example nearer to the end of the video the lyrics ‘it’s safe to say that I’m ready to let you leave’ the visuals on screen are of the girl having a laugh with her friends and the boy is simply walking away, however he is not happy, he looks all sad and glum. Also at the start of the music video when the lyrics are ‘when I watched you walk away, well, I never thought I’d say...’ you see them have a fight and you watch the boy walk away. Then the guitarist starts to pluck the strings of a guitar which corresponds to the visuals on screen which are of him playing the guitar in a big open field. As the music then goes on the visuals continue to correspond with the lyrics. ‘It’s safe to say that I’m ready to let you leave’, the girl gets the result back and she has done bad in it, and that is when she realises that she has to get over him to succeed in life.

I would say that the music does cut to the beat because just as the music starts, every time he plucks the strings of the guitar to start a new note, it cuts to a different shot. For example, he first plucks it and the shot is of him sitting on benches then he plucks it again and it cuts to the girl walking in the hall way, and then he plucks it again and it cuts back to him, and so on. Every time there is a pause in the music the scene changes once the music goes back up again. As the music pace changes, the video pace stays the same. For instance, when the music starts to go fast, the pace of the video stays at a normal pace, although the action on the screen in more upbeat and lively, for example, when the music is slow the girl is only just walking, and then the music gets fast and the girl is having an argument with her boyfriend, and you can tell they are shouting however, the pace of the video stays the same. Throughout the music video, when only a solo instrument is being played, for example the guitar, they do illustrate it in the video. So when the guitarist starts to play his part at 1minute 05 seconds, it cuts to him on the field playing the guitar and stays on him until the singer starts to sing again. 

Genre characteristics relate to the certain traits associated with the genre of the music video. Rock music videos most of the time have some sort of a hardcore performance. However ‘without you’ is an unusually different, there is a narrative in this video, however at points they do show performance in the field, but even this performance isn’t the usual rock type performance.

The girl in this music video has been portrayed as a sweet innocent girl whose heart has broken, however the boy in this music video has been shown to be a popular-girl-crazed boy. During the music video, he is flirting with another girl and then more nearer to the end of the music video he gets into a fight. This shows what sort of boy he is, getting into fights most likely over girls. However the girl is someone that cares about her future and she wants to work hard to achieve the highest, she is shown to be achieving very poorly when she was with this boy however as the lyrics states ‘when I watched you walk away, well, I thought I’d never say. I’m fine with you’ you can see that now that she is fine, she is also academically achieving the highest and she has a much happier, brighter life.

Throughout the music video there are close-ups of both the artist and the stars. The opening shot is of the artist playing his guitar. The shot is a mid-shot and at first is blurred then focuses. This captures the viewer’s attention as they wait to see who it is as the lens focuses. Throughout the start of the music video all shots are mid-shots, even of when they are showing the boy flirting with another girl. The shots then get closer as they show the performance, and when they are showing a panning view of the drums, it goes from an long shot to a close up. Just before they show the first extreme close up, they show an establishing shot of one of the band members playing the guitar, then it cuts straight to the girls paper that she has just got back, and they show a extreme close up of her grade. Not at a single point during the music video is the camera still, at all times it is either a panning shot, a tracking shot or a hand-held shot. Which means that it is moving at all times.

The record company could be trying to sell this track by producing a certain type of an album cover for example this song isn’t very rock but the album cover itself has more of a rock vibe to it, this has been one way to get their audiences attention. Another song by Hinder that has a more ‘rock’ style album cover is ‘Lips of angel’ however at the same time the performance and music video of this song is much more rock based than the ‘without you’ music video. A dominant aspect in both these music videos is the performance the bands give. However in the ‘Lips of an angel’ video that performance is stronger and is more rock style than ‘without you’. They have more energy in their performance and the atmosphere has a more rock vibe. For example in the ‘lips of an angel’ music video the light is dark and they have candles lit up all around. However in ‘without you’ music video, the performance is in a field, that is dark but doesn’t seem to have the whole ‘rock’ aspect to it.

Goodwin suggests that in many music videos women are seen as an object. However in this music video the girl goes from being an object of this popular boy to being her own independent lady. She takes charge in her life and sticks up for herself. Unless somebody finds her attractive, there is no voyeurism intended. Throughout this whole music video the camerawork and costumes do not imply sexual display; however in ‘lips of an angel’ from the start the costume of the girl is implying sexual attention. She is walking around in her knickers and vest top which attract the ‘male gaze’. The reference to ‘looking’ in music videos such as screens within screens etc, occurs at the start of ‘without you’ when the girl opens up her locker and there you see her look at a picture and then we see the picture. Other than that there is no other reference to ‘looking’ throughout this music video.

In this specific music video by Hinder, the main intertextuality reference is the star they use to portray the main guy. He is a star from a big movie called Twilight and from that movie he is well know, and in this he plays the big tough guy, this portrays the stars aspects because he is a built guy and they are able to use that to the best of their abilities and make him look big and tough and like he can pull and girl he wants. At the same time as this, the music video as a whole portrays everyday life, it shows these students who go to school and are encountering problems that normal teenagers may also come across and this to me can either refer to TV programs or films, such as High School Musical.

In the music video I have analysed, Hinder’s ‘without you’, the music video is a narrative based video. The band is positioned in an open school field, and everything else is situated within the school. When the band is performing, most of the time they are in a dark setting, however when the camera cuts to all the action taking place inside the school, the setting goes back to normal daylight and is bright. This is an unusual setting for a rock music video as most rock music videos have a lot of hard, up-beat performances and even when they do have a narrative music video, it usually isn’t this casual.

Our final storyboard- Little Red Riding Hood- Task.

In this task, once we came up with our second storyboard we realized how disjointed our music video for this Red Riding Hood task had become. However this is what nowadays music videos are like. For example we are jumping from establishing shots to closeup/extreme closeups. This makes the visuals very jumpy and on beat.

Our final storyboard- Little Red Riding Hood.

Our Storyboard Of Little Red Riding Hood- Task.

Ishma and I conduct a task in lesson where we came up with a storyboard for the 'Little Red Riding Hood' story. For this we had to come up with around 25-30 frames of a story. The story intends not to link with the actual lyrics.
We then asked fellow class members to remove half the frames without actually paying any attention to what the story is about, and so we then came up with a second storyboard with half the frames we started off with.

Our Storyboard Of Little Red Riding Hood

Preliminary Task

Costumes:

• Pink dress
• Black/red dress

List of locations:

• Sureya’s bedroom.
• Sureya’s garden.
• Beverly park – for roses scene.
• Drama studios.

List of resources need for music video:

• A rose.
• Cut up pictures of pretty celebrities.
• Another dress for costume change.
• Speakers for playing the track out loud.
• Make-up.
• Picture of singer.
• Soft toys.
• Posters.

Preliminary Task- The synopsis

The first 3 seconds of the music:

·         Mid shot of the chair (set the location).

·         Singer walks into the shot, says the first line.

·         Cuts to picking up lip balm, putting it on lip, close up of lips (cuts to the beat of the music).

·         Cuts to sorting out pictures (beat of the music).

·         Quick cut of singer’s head: mid-shot.

·         Sudden cut to table with pictures of the singer (mirror) throws away the picture of the model -> bin shot (close-up).

·         Close-up of singer’s face: satisfied.

·         Cutaway to different people’s faces saying different lines. “When it comes to me...” <- Cuts back to singers face (close-up).

·         Then it goes to an over the shoulder shot (mirror).

·         Shot of pushing make-up away.

·         Sudden cut to walking through roses (back view) then front view.

·         Cut to garden, sitting on bench with rose (long shot).

·         Cuts to bench rocking.

·         Close-up- “who says...” to singers face.

·         Close-up to mirror, “perfect” written on the mirror.

·         Cut to mid-shot in front of the mirror (“who says”)

·         Extreme close-up of the rose, singer is holding it.

·         A mid-shot of singer in the roses for when the lyrics is “trust me...”

·         Cuts away to close-up of singers face.

·         Then it cuts to the word ‘pretty’ written on the table with eye shadow.

·         Ariel shot of singer dropping on the bed

·         Then extreme close-up of the singers face.

To what extent can Goodwin and Mulvey theory of voyeurism be applied to music videos?

The idea of voyeurism comes from Freud. It broadly refers to the idea of looking in order to gain sexual pleasure. It is argued that the male viewers gaze at the screen is geared to notions of voyeurism in that it is a powerful controlling gaze at the objectified female on display. For example in Keri Hilson’s music viedo for ‘The way you love me’ Hilson is seen wide-leg with steamy moves. This type of music videos mainly attract the male attention over the female. Furthermore in music promos the female on display has been a staple element just like Keri Hilson is in her music video.

Goodwin argues that the female performer will frequently be objectified in this fashion, often through a combination of camera work and editing techniques with fragmented by shots emphasising a sexualised treatments of the star. This is shown in Beyonce’s ‘Halo’ music video, this video is a very suttle version of all this. Throughout the music video she appears wearing lingerie and is very seductive towards her malepartner in the. The idea of voyeurism is apparent in male performances too. The treatment of the femals body is often apparent through the use of dancers as this flatters the male ego. This can be looked at in 50 Cent’s ‘Candy shop’ music viedo, In this music video women are also walking around in lingerie and at a certain part in the music video the ladies start to dance in a very seducive manner. Goodwin would say that women have been learned to be looked at.

Music has been called an instrument of male gaze, producing representations of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from the male point of view. Voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gazes and Mulvey argues that this has associations with sadism; ‘pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt- asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment of forgiveness’. One of Katy Perry’s new music video ‘Thank God Its Friday’ her image is not racy at all, in fact  she is a complete geek with braces and big glasses- something that avoids the attention of the ‘male gaze’. However in her big hit song ‘California Girls’ her image is the total opposite, she is very lustful in this music video and this attracts the ‘male gaze’.

The idea of seeing the male body in a music video becomes more complex when we see it on display. Women tend to have more control over being sexually appealing  and being proactive. For this you could use Lady Gaga as an example. In all her music videos she appears in minimal clothing, yet you can see her rage and control over everything, you can see that she has the power over others. In the her music video to ‘Telephone’ she is not wearing much clothing, she alos goes on to escape from prison and poison a man. This shows how much control she has, whereas if this was a male body being on display for example JLS (they always lift their shirts up to show their abs) they dont show the power they have over anyone else. They just stand there, lift their shirts up and sing. This shows the difference between how women know how to control such aspects and how men dont.