What is creativity?
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Music Video and Narrative : Restricted and Omniscient
Restricted describes the parts in a music video where we are treated to clips where the narrative is only fixed on one character, and the audience can only see what they see, which can sometimes be something very confusing. For example, in this video the first few seconds are just close-ups of the man and womans face, and they show now difinitive emotion, and we know how they are related.
Omniscient describes the parts in a music video where the narrative is not tied to anything in particular in the video, and the camera lets the audience in to more than what the character can guess. For example, in this video, after the close ups of the man and women, we are given a long shot of the woman on the roof, and we suddenly realise she wants to commit suicide, and that the mans going to realise shes up there and save her, and although thats not a perfect recollection of the video, it is pretty much what happens.
Using restrictions in the video, creates a very suspensful type of story, and can maybe add a bit more drama into something in which might of been very boring otherwise. Saying that though, omniscient usage of camera shots and clips could also be used to create another type of tension, where the audience know exactly what is going on, and is dying for the character to find out too.
Omniscient describes the parts in a music video where the narrative is not tied to anything in particular in the video, and the camera lets the audience in to more than what the character can guess. For example, in this video, after the close ups of the man and women, we are given a long shot of the woman on the roof, and we suddenly realise she wants to commit suicide, and that the mans going to realise shes up there and save her, and although thats not a perfect recollection of the video, it is pretty much what happens.
Using restrictions in the video, creates a very suspensful type of story, and can maybe add a bit more drama into something in which might of been very boring otherwise. Saying that though, omniscient usage of camera shots and clips could also be used to create another type of tension, where the audience know exactly what is going on, and is dying for the character to find out too.
Music Video and Narrative: Propp
Using the propp narrative model, the audience could easily predict how a the narrative will work out. I think this is a very clear narrative, and I prefer it to the Todorov, as it concentrates more on the characters, rather than the scenes in the music video. I will again use the Artic Monkey video ( Leave before the lights come on) to demonstrate this narrative structure.
The character who is portrayed as the 'hero' in this video, is quite clearly the man who saved the woman from jumping off the building. The video then transpires from the fact he saved her, and now she takes a liking to him. Its quite an interesting character take if we use the structure Propp gives us, as in the beginning of the video, the woman to us is obviously a victim of some kind, but after she becomes stroppy and starts stalking the man she becomes a slight villian, as we see her become into an attention seeking, probably crazy lady. In a way, we could even say there is a dispatcher in this video, as the shoe, incidentily sent the man on his quest to save the woman, as without the shoe falling on the ground he would never of known she was up there, but then we remember that we know now that the women purposfully threw her shoe down, hoping someone would save her, so maybe she could be the dispatcher too.
Although its unclear as to which one of the 8 character functions we could place both the man and women in, the producer has made it very clear to identify which character function suits who. They have made it redundant aswell, which helps us even more to identify the fact that the hero is a stereotypical male, and something which we could predict.
The character who is portrayed as the 'hero' in this video, is quite clearly the man who saved the woman from jumping off the building. The video then transpires from the fact he saved her, and now she takes a liking to him. Its quite an interesting character take if we use the structure Propp gives us, as in the beginning of the video, the woman to us is obviously a victim of some kind, but after she becomes stroppy and starts stalking the man she becomes a slight villian, as we see her become into an attention seeking, probably crazy lady. In a way, we could even say there is a dispatcher in this video, as the shoe, incidentily sent the man on his quest to save the woman, as without the shoe falling on the ground he would never of known she was up there, but then we remember that we know now that the women purposfully threw her shoe down, hoping someone would save her, so maybe she could be the dispatcher too.
Although its unclear as to which one of the 8 character functions we could place both the man and women in, the producer has made it very clear to identify which character function suits who. They have made it redundant aswell, which helps us even more to identify the fact that the hero is a stereotypical male, and something which we could predict.
Music video and Narrative : Todorov
An example which I can give of the todorov narrative model is a music video by the Artic Monkeys, and its called Leave before the lights come on.
Equilibrium: A man is walking down the street.
Disequilibrium: A woman is standing on the roof of a building and it appears like she is about to commit suicide
Recognition: She drops a shoe onto the floor, and the man picks it up and looks up. He sees what she appears about to do and runs up to stop her.
Reparation: He then takes her for a drink, where he leaves when she tries to kiss him. She tried to chase him but he shrugs her off, he gets angry and he has ago at her, where she runs off back to the buildings roof.
New Equilibrium: She waits for another man to pass, and she drops her shoe again.
Equilibrium: A man is walking down the street.
Disequilibrium: A woman is standing on the roof of a building and it appears like she is about to commit suicide
Recognition: She drops a shoe onto the floor, and the man picks it up and looks up. He sees what she appears about to do and runs up to stop her.
Reparation: He then takes her for a drink, where he leaves when she tries to kiss him. She tried to chase him but he shrugs her off, he gets angry and he has ago at her, where she runs off back to the buildings roof.
New Equilibrium: She waits for another man to pass, and she drops her shoe again.
Theorists: Micheal Shore
Micheal Shore was another theorist who provides us with a way to look at music videos. Some of his key features include:
: recycled styles
: Simulated experiences
: imformation overload
: image and style scavengers
: Vanity and the moment
: adolescent male fantasies
: speed, power, girls and wealth
: album art
: classic storyline motifs
: soft-core pornography
: clique imagery
An example which would provide us with an idea of what he means is Beyonce and Jay-Z's video - Bonnie and Clyde.
: recycled styles
: Simulated experiences
: imformation overload
: image and style scavengers
: Vanity and the moment
: adolescent male fantasies
: speed, power, girls and wealth
: album art
: classic storyline motifs
: soft-core pornography
: clique imagery
An example which would provide us with an idea of what he means is Beyonce and Jay-Z's video - Bonnie and Clyde.
Theorists: Andrew Goodwin
Andrew Goodwin identified that there are several different key features in a music video
(in his opinion) These are:
(in his opinion) These are:
: A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contrasting with the lyrics.
: Genre-related style and iconography present
: Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist/s
: Voyerism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females
: Intertextual references to other media texts may be present
A music video in which think relates to all of the features to Goodwins theory is The kill by 30 Seconds to Mars.
As is obvious, it provides us with an immediate intertextual reference to a well known film, The Shining.
In relation to this though, as I will discuss in more detail later on, this video also follows the sctructure of the film itself, this of course being a propp narrative. This is obvious to people who have actually watched the film, but even without it being a reflection of the film, people who hadn't watched it would still be able to follow what was going on, even though it is very entropic. The characters have been changed in the music video, as I think it would of been difficult to decide who would play what role, so instead of basing themselves on the characters of the film, they each took a part of the film and applied it for themselves. For example, the lead singer takes part of the lead character ( Jack Nicholls) and plays out the part of the film where he is sat in a bar. In relation to Goodwins theory though, i think that there are many examples that the lyrics have a clear relationship to the visuals; 'Come break me down, bury me, bury me, I am finished with you'. This begins to show as he is throwing a ball at the wall by himself, seemingly in a mad kind of way, so we get the impression that he is going insane, which aswell goes along with the narrative. The genre of the music is very 'emo' and dark, which I think fits Goodwins theory of genre-related style. The music video is very dark, and almost creepy, which definatly fits in well with the music. There is a touch of sexuality in the film, but interestingly not just linking into the voyeurism in relation to women. This is probably the only feature in his theory which the music video would not comply with completely, as there is a touch of homosexuality. But there is still a sexual relation to women though, as a women is in a bathroom with nothing but a bathrobe around her, and she and one of the band start kissing. There are many close ups to the main singer all throughout the video; at the beginning in the car, the middle while he throws the ball and goes wandering around the hotel, and at the end when he is on stage.
I think I agree with goodwins theory, although not all music videos I have researched or watched have intertextual references, and not always do the lyrics go well with the video.
Music Videos and their Genres
Genre: Live Performance
Conventions: A live performance video is usually a video of the band or act doing a live set at a gig, or it is video footage at the band or act on tour, with a pre-recorded audio over the top. Usually there is footage of them backstage, or meet and greeting the fans.
Appeal to the audience?: The appeal of this is for fans who arn't interested in watching an over entropic video, and want to watch how the band or act handle being on stage, and it would be more for people who love live music. (i.e independant listeners)
Example: Lostprophets - Where we belong (This video was taken while they went on tour, after the release of their new album)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6CleYqU2_o&ob=av2n
Genre: Low-fi/Low-budget
Conventions: This type of video usually contains camera footage off a really low quality camera, and is usally home-made and produced by a band/act themselves. The act will probably be performing in somewhere low budget and not care so much for the aesthetics of the video but focus more on getting their music out there.
Appeal to the audience?: This is for people who love unsigned music, and would be for people who already know of that band, and love their live music.Example: Enter Shikari - Sorry your not a winner (This video was taken from their very first album, Take to the Skies)
Conventions: This type of video usually contains camera footage off a really low quality camera, and is usally home-made and produced by a band/act themselves. The act will probably be performing in somewhere low budget and not care so much for the aesthetics of the video but focus more on getting their music out there.
Appeal to the audience?: This is for people who love unsigned music, and would be for people who already know of that band, and love their live music.Example: Enter Shikari - Sorry your not a winner (This video was taken from their very first album, Take to the Skies)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wngyXhTx4pc
Genre: Sci-fi/animated
Conventions: An animated video usually shows signs of very entropic nature, and involves things that we would consider to be out of this world, and animated could be anything, but just in a cartoon like form.
Appeal to the audience?: The appeal would be for people who love animation, and listen to music which is very technical, like keyboard based music or c
Conventions: An animated video usually shows signs of very entropic nature, and involves things that we would consider to be out of this world, and animated could be anything, but just in a cartoon like form.
Appeal to the audience?: The appeal would be for people who love animation, and listen to music which is very technical, like keyboard based music or c
omputer generated music.
Example: Crazy Frog - Axel F
Example: Crazy Frog - Axel F
Genre: Narrative
Conventions: A narrative video usually contains a storyline which will be followed throughout the video. For example, boy meets girl, they fall in love and then something which will happen in which they will be forced to question their love for each other. Sometimes a narrative video will contain things like a narrator, who will cut in during parts of the video where the song has been suspended, and we capture more and more of a storyline.
Appeal to the audience?: It generally depends on what the music is, as althought the genre is narrative, the genre of the music could be absolutly anything and narrative is a very popular typye of video to go with.
Example: Kids in Glass Houses - Matters at all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MRAc9-Q9C0&ob=av2e
Redundancy and Entropy
Redundancy and entropy are the things in a video which can determine how the video is presented. A high level of redundancy can really put the viewers off watching a video again and bore them, but at the same time high levels of entropy can really confuse us, and could put the successfulness of the video at stake. A good video in my opinion is one which has concentrated levels of each redundancy and entropy, and keeping everything very level, as then we don't have to be bored and we don't have to be confused.
In this presentation I have put forward four music videos, and analysed what I think makes them entropic or redundant.
In this presentation I have put forward four music videos, and analysed what I think makes them entropic or redundant.
Music video
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