MUSIC VIDEOS

Types of music video:

• Performance - Lip synch, live performance, choreographed/free style dance, playing instrument
• Narrative- storyline theme/motifs; linear / non-linear e.g Taylor Swift's 'love story' music video
• Conceptual - abstract set of motifs that may have no obvious link to the lyric

Things to analyse -

• Camera: angles, shot size, camera movement, framing
• Editing: cutting rate/rhythm (to the rhythm/beat?) types of cut (matched, jump, cutaways(e.g singing about a text, the camera shows the text), transitions, effects (SPX)
• Mis-en-scene: costume, make-up, props, location, lighting
• Lip synch and authorage(signature basically) / star quality, which links to...
• Representation: of the star, sexuality, gender, ethnicity/culture, subculture(emo, punk, etc) and genre, personality, celebrity and consumerism
• Audience: and how the video "positions" them; the male gaze

Example: Beyoncé's "If I was a boy"

• Narrative - linear. whole day. she's imagining how it feels to be her boyfriend.
• Very closely links to the lyrics.
• Performance - Lip synching, direct address to the audience(so the audience can feel how she feels)
• Long/mid shot to show narrative, cutting rate in synch with beat.
• Black and white editing - reflects mood, gender inequality
• Masculinity and femininity gender roles.

Weapon of Choice
Conceptual























Drab colours; hotel lobby, boring suit
Bizzare dancing, "flying" using wires
Long shot
Editing rate varies according to tempo
Starts/finishes slow, builds up then down.














Finesse by Bruno Mars
Performance - choreographed & lip synch
Mis-en-scene - retro 90's RnB feeling, clothing, hairstyles,
Editing - Long shots, track shot(follows the person) dynamic(moving all the time), low angle shots; makes the person look superior & powerful
Representation - Makes Cardi B look powerful and independent


Post-modernism:

• By nature hard to define, but might include:
• A mix and match aesthetic, taking influences from a range of genres
• “Look” is as important / more important than “meaning”
• Blurring of time, space
• Unconventional, highly non-linear narrative
• Mixing up types of narration, for example first and third, which might lead to…
• Breaking the fourth wall
• Intertextuality: when there are deliberate references made to other media products, and the music video is only understood if this reference is understood by the audience. This  “poachy” and involves “remix”