Andrew Goodwin analytically outlined his theory and put it all into context in his book: "Dancing in the Distraction Factory" which was published in 1992. He says that the music video represents genre characteristics for example: stage performers/dance moves.
an example of dance-based music video...
an example of performance base music video...
an example of story/narrative based music video...
an example of concept based music video...
There is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals in the music video...
Close up used to promote the artist in the music video...
The idea explains the gendered pleasures of cinema,
referring to the idea of looking in order to gain sexual pleasure from the things we are watching on the screen. It
has been 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. An example of the music video that links to this idea the most is Eric Prydz - Call on me.
Goodwin on Voyeurism
He says that the female artists and actresses will be objectifies in the way they are now at all the time. This will be done by a combination of different types of shots with close-ups and extreme close-ups used the most time. The camera work will also contain some part of their body which will have an effect of sexualisation or sexual treatment of the star.
Laura Mulvey
Mulvey says that they are also three different ways or forms of 'looking':
- camera to
characters
- between characters on screen
- the audience looking at
the screen
All of this forms make up a 'controlling gaze' for a male audience for the specific music video.
The Male Body
But there is also the evidence in the media that male image is represented in the music videos in the way so the actually make up scopophilic
pleasure which the female audience can benefit on and it shows complete contrast to the Godwin's theory.
Below you can see the example of the music videos that contain some of the theories listed above:
Mark Romanek was born September 18, 1959. He is an American
film and music maker as well as director. His main directing
work includes feature films and commercials, but mainly
music video shooted for famous musicians. He has worked
with many top-selling recording artists from different
genres of popular music, and his videos have been given
credit for making stars out of some. He is known for making
some of his music videos a bit disturbing, demonic and
demented. This is the reason why he's videos are so popular
amongst the band's fans.
He is mostly known for notable music videos, for example:
- Hurt - Johny Cash
- Closer- Nine Inch Nails
- Michael and Janet Jackson - Scream
His latest music video production is Coldplay - Speed of
Sound in 2005. After this year, he focused more on his
feature films including: Never Let Go released last year.
By his music video work, he gathered around 19 MTV Music
Awards for awards dedicated as a "Best Music Director" for
Jay'Z's "99 Problems" filmed in 2004. He's awards also
include Grammy Awards for Best Short Form Director. No
other directors won as many awards as Mark Romanek did.
The music video by Coldplay shows the audience really strong narrative of escaping/feeling free. We can relate it to the issue concerning Africa which we can see in the first seconds of the video where we are being introduced by the various number of the animals. It also shows us the landscape of Africa with the title : Paradise in the middle. The music video shows how people can be related to animals and how we can also free ourselves from the issues and problems that are going on around us. The video begins with the music straight away and cut aways to the animal as well to introduce the character.
After we are being bombarded with the shots and close ups on the elephant who is in the jail and has no way of escaping. This image is really strong as it shows the main message of the music video which links with the lyrics as well. The elephant acts and behaves like an adult, so we can see the relation between ourselves and the character of the animal in the music video.
After we jump to a scene where the elephant is being chased by the guards and he is escaping from them. This is really strong scene as it relates to the title in 100%. There is always a contrast between it but it is easier for the audience to connect everything together. The sense of Paradise and escaping from somewhere we were forced to stay makes us think about the issues concerning the world like: slavery in many African countries which is still going on until now.
After just seeing 36 seconds of the music video we can see the first prop that can help us to relate it to the society we live in today and the place we live in which is London. In the shot you can see the elephant finding a Barclays Bike (ordinary bike) which is used by many Londoners around the city, so the people that watch it recognise the logo straight away and links it with the capital. As London has a huge population of people with different needs of music, this music video is attracting the audience really nicely by setting most of the scenes in the Central London and showing the most recognisable logos and signs by the people living in the city.
In the underground we can see that the character is using placards to express he's feelings. This makes an effect of trying to understand the character more and he's trying to say something to us. This jumps quickly to the scene with the plane departing from the airport. This is another really strong image which relates to the title of the song and the feeling of freedom and getting away from something/forgetting about things. The plane represents the symbol of freedom and flying away from place to place. As the audience we are still not sure who is hidden under the elephant costumes and the whole magic is broken for a minute when Chris, the lead singer takes the head of and shows his face.
After that shot we already know that the artist hides behind the mask, but he reached the paradise. This might also pass a message of the band reaching their aim by making this album and letting it out to the public. The paradise might also imply the state the band is in and the success they gained by publishing the album and the main song which is Paradise. The mood of the music video changes when after the long journey, the elephant finally finds his "family" who is represented by the rest of the band hidden behind the costume.
The scene might also imply the idea of reuniting together and sticking together so everything will be all right and we all be secure. This might also relate to the elephant animals that are under threat of being killed by other people in the African deserts. Those cases might link together to create an image, or it might just simply be the audience unusual interpretation.
At the end of the music video we are travelling between the desert and the actual Coldplay concert where all of the band members are wearing the animal masks and all stick together to bow in front of the audience. This might create a message that the problems that were represented before are not really happening in our society and people need to be more aware of the issues that are being happening around the world. Or maybe my interpretation is just too brutal and they just wanted to make fun of their work and do something new to just simply promote/sell their album.
During the editing process, we have used iMovie HD. We used the same software when we were doing our "Low budget opening scene" back in the year. There were many problems which I/Group have experienced during the proccess. On the same time we also learnt a lot of things which helped us and will still do in the making process of the music video this year.
As the software is not really complex it was really hard to edit scenes where there is a lot of cutting skills needed. You can't really zoom in and the tools that are there to cut the clips between or split them are not always doing it on the point you want to do. So this causes us to redo the action and try it again. This is quiet long process and wastes some time, but can be worked through without any major time shifting.
Another point is that there is not a lot of effects when it comes to special effects/ lighting and texture repairs there is no way you can do as this software does not include such options at all. The only effect that you can get are the transitions eg. fade away, zoom in, shuffle etc. If I would compare this software to Final Cut Express, software that we are using this year there is huge gap between them. The Final Cut is really professional software which I liked to work on.
Things learnt during editing process [Preliminary Task]:
Things that I have learnt throughout this process is to always save my files in one place, especially film footage. Every time I am makingsome changes to the film time line I need to remember about saving it in case the computer system breaks and all the software might delete. I am writing about this because this is what happened to our friends. they had to do everything again from the top including capture/export of the entire footage again which takes some time.
Separate all the clips and put them in to some kind of order so you don't get everything messed up and take time to find the useful clips that you want to use in the specific scene.
The most important thing that I learnt was to put the film type and format correctly so after I finish editing and export the movie into appropriate file, the movie looks really good with good quality and can be played on other computers around the country and on web eg. YouTube
Start-up screen of iMovie HD - software used to edit Preliminary Task
The minute we have started planning the Preliminary Task, we begun to thought about what kind of music video we would like to make. We decided to use a band which represents a British music in Indie/Rock kind of music. We picked a band called: Noah and the Whale which perfectly reflects the genre we intended to use for this task. The band is currently singed to Mercury Records which is part of Universal Music Group. This led to them making better and kind of big-budget videos that appeal to wider variety of audience.
The one minute "Pop Music Promo" which was meant to last only one minute in time required the same amount of work and preparing as the final A2 Music Video. In order to make it worth the marks, we planned and storyboarded our ideas according to the requirements. We were told to shoot more than one location which cannot include any types of park, set of costume changes and the most important thing - the camerawork which had to show a lot of close ups which would lead to artist being more appealing to the audience.
One of the main ideas that the Preliminary Task was based on was the use of "signs" representing different letter. This idea came up after exploring the original music title which is L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. They would be used in the main chorus jumping from one to another, highlighting the name of the song very effectively. This effect would make the music video attractive and the song would become more memorable by the people watching it.
In brief, our music video opens with a shot of sings hung on a washing line which put create the title of the song. The initial idea was to make it look like it's a stage banner during the performance in order to introduce the band, but at the end it was used just as a background for the mis-en-scene.
Below I paste a link to our Group Blog (Freddy and The Letdowns). In order to check the process of filming and making our music video just subscribe to it, or click on the link which will re-direct you to the blog.
