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, usually close up angles to see the face, makeup and facial expressions.

• 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 sync and authorage(signature basically) / star quality, which links to... their signature, distinction e.g Sia's wig.
• 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 

Examples:

1.Jorja Smith's The One music video: camera: contains a lot of close ups, zoom ins, mid-shots of her
Editing:  cuts in and out of some scenes = cutaways and cross cutting between three strands e.g her room, bathroom and outside of the motel.
mis-en-scene: naturalistic, set in her motel room and outside the motel, wearing natural clothes and natural makeup, lighting is dull which reflects her feelings about her unsure relationship, retro 70s setting(?)
Representation: vulnerable, weak, sexuality is shown but not in terms of male gaze, 
Audience: 
performance: lip-sync

2.Beyonce - Formation - postmodernism.
Camera: mid-shots, long shots, zoom in,
Editing: cutaways,
Mis-en-scene: set in different locations, fancy costumes (historical clothes),
Representation:   male gaze because the female bodies are put on show, Beyonce wears revealing clothes, this contradicts with post-feminism, as you can wear whatever you want and have female power. 
Performance & Conceptual: dancing, lip-sync, abstract elements > slavery, female empowerment, everyone in the music video was black except for two police officers,

Music videos you need to know: Emelie Sande’s “Heaven” and Radiohead’s “Burn the Witch”

Focus on media language, context, representation, genre differences, postmodernism. Baudrillard, narratology, Levi-Strauss.

Radiohead’s “Burn the Witch”: idea of postmodernism.

Theory you need to know for music video: Goodwin:

1. relationship between lyrics and the visuals, which illustrate, reinforce or contradict the lyrics.
2. Music videos create a mood: romance, nostalgia, nihilism(sad, depressed)
3. Thought beats: we see the sounds, relationship between the music and the visuals
4. Genre-related style and iconography present.
5. Multiple closeups of artist.

Third example:

Gotye - somebody that I used to know

Type: conceptual (lyrics don't really relate to the music video, abstract)
Camera: mid-shot, close up of face
Editing: timelapse (speed up), animation
Mis-en-scene: setting was very odd looking, post-modern looking background,


You have to know this example! Radiohead - Burn the witch.



type: Narrative  During the video, an inspector is greeted by a town mayor and invited to see a series of unsettling sights, culminating in the unveiling of a wicker man. The mayor urges the inspector to climb into the wicker man, whereupon he is locked inside as a human sacrifice and the wicker man is set on fire. As the flames gather, the townspeople turn their backs and wave goodbye to the camera. After the song ends, the inspector escapes among the trees.

Camera: 

Editing:

Mis-en-scene: figurine setting with figures/dolls,

Representation:


Context: Wicker Man 1973 - British mystery horror film, centres on the visit of Police Sergeant Neil Howie to the isolated island of Summerisle, in search of a missing girl. Howie, a devout Christian, is appalled to find that the inhabitants of the island have abandoned Christianity and now practise a form of Celtic paganism. Paul Giovanni composed the film score. This creates intertextuality.

The Trumptonshire Trilogy (1966 - 1969) Trumpton is a stop-motion children's television series from the producer Gordon Murray. First shown on the BBC from January to March 1967, it was the second series in the Trumptonshire trilogy, which comprised Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley. Trumptonshire was created using stop motion animation and actual 3D scaled down models.

- The band wanted to raise awareness about Europe's refugee crisis and the "blaming of different people, the blaming of Muslims and the negativity" - Kettu (British animator who worked on this music video.)

Emelie Sande's Heaven:

• going somewhere?
• personality change?
• trying to be a better person?
• religion
• themes from the video
• religious iconography - cross, writing on the window; there is only one God, angel wings - graffiti, 
• poverty - people in streets, mise-en-scene, clothing, dull lighting

Things to analyse

Camera: -hand held, sometimes out of focus, repeated close ups of artist, low angle repeated master shot of emeli sande with sky filling frame, low angle of sky/shooting into light, lack of direct address v breaking the 4th wall

Sound:

thought beats

cross cutting from social realist imagery to religious/transcendental imagery

jumpy but not jump cuts from different people, locations, time periods and moods

edited in synch with the beat, lyric

lyric is downbeat contrasts with upbeat rhythm

montage of different characters, locations and symbols of street life