Music videos have been around since the 1920's when many Jazz artists made videos to accompany their music, an example of this was Bessie St. Lewis.
In 1965 Bob Dylan with his Subterranean homesick blues was widely credited as one of the first modern music video's. By the 1970's the record industry discovers Television shows as a great opportunity to promote their artists. The main focus was on creating short 'promos', this meant early music videos started to replace the live performance of the artist on a Television stage, this proved to be extremely time efficient as the artist could be seen on several channels while creating more work. In 1975 there was a ground breaking music video to accompany the song Bohemian Rhapsody by the band Queen. This video was the first to use advanced visual effects and set the language for the modern music video ( the way text is communicated.) When looking at this video I felt it was very repetitive compared to today's music videos.
Technical Codes
Cinematography, Editing, Mis-en-scene, Sound
Camera movement = Dynamic performance, accompany the movement of the performance E.g. Dancing.
Close ups dominate = Creates a sense of intimacy for the viewer.
Editing = Fast cut montage is the most common form of editing in music videos, they are very apparent for the work of many female solo artists with a brand audience appeal, a good
example of this is James Blunt. The pace of the music video usually establishes the mood. Enhancing the editing are digital effects which play with the original images to offer different kinds of pleasure to the audience; this may take the form of split screens, colourisation and of course the blockbuster film style of CGI.
Goodwin's music video analysis
1. Demonstrate genre characteristics.
2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals.
3. Relationship between music and visuals. ( Illustrates, amplifies, contradicts)
4. Demands of record label will include the need of lots of close ups of the artist and the artists may develop motifs which recur across their work ( a visual style)
5. Frequently reference to notion of looking ( screen within screens, telescopes etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body
6. There is often inter textual reference to films, T.V programmes, other music videos etc.
Inter textual References
- Advertisers use it all the time E.g. If a chart song is used it will remind you of the product.
- TV. shows use this technique as well, often for a comedy effect E.g. The Simpsons
- It can also stretch to non-media such as newspapers or magazine adverts.
Different ways inter textual reference is involved in a music video :
Stylistically: Imitating the style of a film, television genre, video game, cartoon etc. E.g. Michael Jackson "thriller" or Madonna "Die another day"
Theme/ Narrative: E.g. George Michael; outside video reference to a incident and the coverage of it.
Content: Subtle inter textual reference within their content E.g. Madonna's material girl reference to mainly Marilyn Monroe being the blonde female figure getting what they want. The music video Addicted To Love references the fashion industry.
Why is inter textual reference used?
The audience may be familiar to generate both potentially nostalgic associations and new media texts.
John Stuart's description of the music video "incorporating raiding reconstructing" is essentially the essence of inter texuality and the sense of satisfaction.
