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.
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
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
View more presentations from Amy Pates.
Friday, 10 September 2010
Video Skills Audit
In this blog I will be listing around five skills I will need in the following year, and writing about what I can do to improve on them, and what I already know about that skill.
Research:
I think that my research skills aren't as good as they should be, due to the fact I become very distracted, and I don't kick myself into motivating and getting the research done. Research is a very important part of any task in any area, and without it you cannot hope to achieve anything that will be worth publishing/producing/making. I know what I have to do when it comes to research, and its not that I find it difficult, its that my brain is very over active and focuses on what I'd rather be doing; the production. Its in this sense that my skills on research aren't up to scratch, because I haven't allowed myself to do as much as I can to produce some excellent research material. So this year, I plan to and become determined to do all I can to ensure I do as much research as I possibly can. I think I can achieve this by doing the research in a more interesting way; rather than use the internet solely for my info, I will be able to use videos etc. to gain knowledge about what will make a good music video, I may even be able to go to gigs and concerts in an attempt to have an interview with some of the musicians available about what they think I should do in order to do as well as I can.
Research:
I think that my research skills aren't as good as they should be, due to the fact I become very distracted, and I don't kick myself into motivating and getting the research done. Research is a very important part of any task in any area, and without it you cannot hope to achieve anything that will be worth publishing/producing/making. I know what I have to do when it comes to research, and its not that I find it difficult, its that my brain is very over active and focuses on what I'd rather be doing; the production. Its in this sense that my skills on research aren't up to scratch, because I haven't allowed myself to do as much as I can to produce some excellent research material. So this year, I plan to and become determined to do all I can to ensure I do as much research as I possibly can. I think I can achieve this by doing the research in a more interesting way; rather than use the internet solely for my info, I will be able to use videos etc. to gain knowledge about what will make a good music video, I may even be able to go to gigs and concerts in an attempt to have an interview with some of the musicians available about what they think I should do in order to do as well as I can.
Development of Idea's:
For the task of creating a music video, I'm positive that I will need to have a range of different idea's, as there will be a chance the idea I want to use, will not work. And without a development of idea's I will not get the end result that I would of hoped for. To get a better development of ideas, research will need to present. So in order to get better ideas I need to make sure my research is up to scratch. At the moment, I believe I do create a good range of idea's, but I let myself down when it comes to documenting them, so I'll have an idea, but I won't be able to say where I got it from. This year I'll make sure that my research heavily influences my idea's, and I'll make sure that I document everything down.
Sets and Props:
Sets and props are going to be a very important part of any video I make this year, so I need to be able to take control of what happens with them. In past experiences I have had ideas of what we can do in relations to sets and props, but has never felt like I could express my idea's as it was always someone else in charge. Or we never used to have enough time to even think about including anything else to the video, just the bare minimum. But this year I'd like to think I will step up and make sure anything I can think of which I think will work really well, will be taking at least into consideration. Its not that I'm terrible at this skill, its just that I need to improve on how I use it.
Sets and props are going to be a very important part of any video I make this year, so I need to be able to take control of what happens with them. In past experiences I have had ideas of what we can do in relations to sets and props, but has never felt like I could express my idea's as it was always someone else in charge. Or we never used to have enough time to even think about including anything else to the video, just the bare minimum. But this year I'd like to think I will step up and make sure anything I can think of which I think will work really well, will be taking at least into consideration. Its not that I'm terrible at this skill, its just that I need to improve on how I use it.
Camera Skills:
In order for my video to look as proffesional as possible im going to need to make sure that i handle the camera to the best of my ability. The better the skills the better my video. I will need to make sure that I know exactly what I can do with the camera, including the angles, and different colour tones I can apply. The more i know the easier it will be for me to shoot, and the more I can do to make sure my video is exactly what I want.
Scripting:
For the production of my video I neede to be able to read and create a script, so my video can be planned properly, and on the day of the shooting i have a suitable scructure to go by. I will need to be able to create story boards and day plans aswell, in order to keep everything organised. Last year when we experimented slightly with the video cameras, I was able to get a taste of what a story board should look like and how you should make it, but I didn't use up too much time on it, and so this year, I will be presented with the chance to enhance my skills.
For the production of my video I neede to be able to read and create a script, so my video can be planned properly, and on the day of the shooting i have a suitable scructure to go by. I will need to be able to create story boards and day plans aswell, in order to keep everything organised. Last year when we experimented slightly with the video cameras, I was able to get a taste of what a story board should look like and how you should make it, but I didn't use up too much time on it, and so this year, I will be presented with the chance to enhance my skills.
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