Carol Vernallis Research
Carol Vernallis found out that editing in music videos is way more frequent than movies. This is because it often matches the rhythm of the song and done to stand out as disjuncture.
The rule of continuity editing is broken to draw attention to what is on the screen. A lot of jump cuts and obvious edits such as wipes and special effects. Base tracks are also used with the camera moving in time with the music.
Beyonce's video, countdown, uses many of these components...
ANDREW GOODWIN'S THEORY
Andrew Goodwin identifies 5 key aspects of music videos that we, the audience should look out for which are:
Thought beats - Seeing the sound
Taking into account the structure of the song for example the chorus/verse.
The artists voice being unique which forms trademarks that work well with the star image.
Taking in the story that the artist/s are trying to tell us.
Narrative and performance
Andrew Goodwin believed that the artist who made the song should be acting out a role as the main character or singer to engage with the audience and to make the video look more realistic. However, nowadays we have many videos that go against this theory an example being 'Avicii'.
The star image
The stars image is a vital aspect of the music video according to his theory. He believed that the main artist should be the centre of attention with unique clothes that stand out to make them different from everybody else.
Relation of visual to song
Andrew believed that a music video can promote a song through the way it analysis the lyrics. This is when characters do exactly what the song says. An example would be a man getting on the bus and in the music would be talking about a man getting on the bus...
Technical aspics of a music video
Andrew said that the technical aspects of a music video help to hold the video together. He said that the lighting helped set the mood and create emphasis. Mise-en-scene helps the artist gain authentication and makes his work seem more professional. Also the beat of the song is important as it could help effective cuts to go with the rhythm of the song to make the video look more entertaining.
What I learned in the AS year In the AS year, I learned how to get into the sound section a bit deeper than ever before because I needed foley sounds to make up for a lot of things. I learnt how to get good foley sounds and place them in where they should be. Music and sound copyright was also a thing that was new to me in the AS year. I found a new website to get songs off that were available to download and place in my short movie without any trouble or worries of copyright.
I also learnt how to blog effectively with different sources and links such as Camtasia, Emaze etc...
I planned out my short movie very well and went in depth with every decision me and my group made. Every decision that was made, was considered by everyone more than once. From this I learnt how important it is to plan before hand as things could go very wrong and get out of hand on the day you shoot.
I have learned that music videos are a videotaped performance of a recorded song, visually accompanied by dancing and visual images interpreting the lyrics.
Music videos are different to other forms of moving images because they mainly have artists and these artists are it's main focus, whereas other forms such as movies tend to have just actors and the main focus of movies are these actors.
In my opinion, what makes an excellent music video is the story that is told visually through creative moving images. This includes the narrative, shot types, movement, and mes-en-scene.
The best example of the music video form in my opinion goes to:
Bad Meets Evil - Fast Lane ft. Eminem, Royce Da 5'9
The effects in this video are simply phenomenal along with the performance and every technical aspect. This is because it looks like a very hard video to make, especially on the day of filming because they have to get everything right, and its hard when the special effects do not exist in real life so you have to imagine what it may look like and then perform. The director did a very good job directing these artists as it seems he/she gave them a clear image of whats going on and what they should be doing in each step of the video.
Throughout the summer, I was thinking about an artist that I would like to focus on and a song of theirs that would allow me to make an effective music video.
I was thinking of a British, pop/trip pop/soul artists called Delilah, and the song I am thinking of using is Disrespect. Out of all of her songs, I chose this one and it doesn't have an existing music video and think will allow me to be creative with how we film the video, and will will not be influenced by an existing music video.
After choosing this song, that I might use, I emailed a letter to an email Delilah had on her instagram page (@delilahofficial); delilahofficialhq@gmail.com, asking for permission to use her song for my project.
Laura Mulvey didn’t write her theory directly about music
videos, she wrote about representation of women in the media in general, but
this can be applied to music videos.
In her quote she basically states that men have power and
women don’t. That men do the looking and women are the ones that get looked at.
Also that the perception that men have of women (that women are sexual objects)
is in printed on images of women in the media. Mulvey also discusses that women
are ‘dismembered.’ We as an audience are made to focus on certain parts of their
body and not the women as a whole whereas the men are shown as a whole.
In this video there are a lot of close-ups of their bums,
which makes the audience focus on those parts of their body. This goes along
with Mulvey’s theory that women are looked on as sexual objects. For this video
I think that the audience would more likely be men because of the content in
the video.
In this video it is clear that men do the looking and women
get looked at, which is something that Laura Mulvey mentioned in her theory.
These screenshots show the men’s reactions after they look at the women in the
video. Firstly the reaction of the male character when he looks at Nicki Minaj
shows that he’s impressed with what he sees. Another example is the last two
pictures and the reaction on the male faces after they look at Cassie, this shows
that they can’t take their eyes of off her and are ‘love struck.’
Carol Vernallis studied editing and camera work in music
videos, she observed that edits in music videos come much more frequently than
in film.
Carol Vernallis says that narrative in music videos is not always
complete and doesn’t have a resolution and the end. She also mentions that
there’s not always a balance between narrative and performance and there are
often pose questions in the narrative that are not answered within the video.
Through her observations Carol Vernallis learnt that the rules of ‘continuity’
editing are broken in order to draw attention to what is on screen. Also that
there are obvious edits, special effects, jump cuts and camera movement (not a
lot of static shots). Lastly she learnt that there’s a base track used
frequently in music videos to give the video a structure.
Andrew Goodwins theory talks about the structure of music
videos. He states that music videos approach narrative from a different angle
to novels and films. The reasons for the different narrative is because music
videos are built around song lyrics, the singer is used as narrator and a
charater and unlike in films the singer breaks the 4th wall which
involves the viewer. He also says that pop videos rely on repetition of images
which goes with the repetition of choruses and lines.
Andrew Goodwins theory also states that there are three
types of relations between songs and videos:
Illustration
This video shows an example of illustration, this is when
the video tells the story of the lyrics.
This video fits the category because whatever is mentioned
you can see happening on the screen. Also we don’t see the artist perform the
song, it is 100% narrative.
Amplification
This video is an example of amplification where the video
introduces meaning that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of
meaning.
This fits the category because it uses both performance and
narrative throughout the video and adds layers of meaning through the idea of
showing Kanye West’s ‘home’, the audience can then work out that the song is
called ‘homecoming’ and it includes him walking around a town he knows. At some
parts of the song it also includes visual images that match the lyrics.
Disjuncture
This video is an example of disjuncture where there is little connection between the lyrics and video/where the
video contradicts the lyrics. This fits the category because…
