A blog by SP on music industry and music video promo as well as creation of music video for Brutal - Olivia Rodrigo. Blog link for my two production partners are below
less sophisticated, simplistic, easily digestible terms, linked to tabloids and red-tops (The Daily Mail, Reveal)
Editing and Filming techniques:
Cross-fade - make a picture or sound appear or be heard gradually
Cross-cutting - shots cutting from one scene of action to another, often signify them happening at the same time
Ellipses - a chunk of time removed through editing
Matched cut- cut from shot A to B with clear similarity in framing and content
Snorricam - attaching the camera to yourself when filming, very useful in stalking scene.
Brokeh effect - the effect of a soft out-of-focus background that you get when filming.
Deep focus- on background, subject in front blurred
Shallow focus- on subject at front, blurry background, connotes importance
Rule of thirds- shot split into 3rds, directs action focus
Hand of God- opening horror technique created by Hitchcock in Psycho, pan of a city continuing to zoom into a window until it reaches the protagonist
Shots:
ELS- extreme long shot
LS- long shot
MLS- medium long hot
MS- medium shot
MCU- medium close up
CU-close up
BCU-big close up
ECU- extreme close up
Tracking Shot- follows specific image or subject, typically done on tracks
Crane Shot- camera operator on a crane, shot from above
Master shot- building up shot, withholding exposition, multiple close-up shots of an area before extreme long shot to incorporate, builds up narrative enigma
180-degree rule- used in shot/reverse shot sequence, continuity editing
Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. She is known for her influence on modern pop music and her camp style, being dubbed the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue and Rolling Stone.
The video takes place at a wedding, Perry appears frustrated and the music begins to play diegetically, with the congregation dancing as disco lights flash. Perry begins to sing the song to Alexander before he flees the altar. There is a narrative created through Katy's hero’s journey(Campbell's monomyth).
Perry corners him in a warehouse, and Alexander is pulled into an audience and forced to crowd-surf while watching Perry perform the song on stage. I liked how in this music video the concept, narrative and performance are intertwined.
When Alexander pulls out his phone, Perry is on the screen singing to him, something I wish to incorporate in my music video through the tv.
The music video features constant costume changes. After a location change from the warehouse, we see Katy Perry outside wearing urban clothing, surrounded by dancers dressed similarly. When he turns around, he discovers that he has been cornered by Perry and the group of angry brides. He stumbles and the dancers surround him as he lies on the ground, before Perry approaches him leading a zebra on a leash. Alexander blinks and finds himself back at the altar in the church, revealing that the previous events were just a daydream, making it a cyclical narrative, making the reader want to watch it again.
The video has an overall heteronormative message, with the stereotypical normative masculine figure avoiding getting married. However, it can also have a post-feminist reading (Stuart Hall)
as she is reclaiming her female agency.
As conventional pop music video, it features colour pop and bright colouring. The oversaturation links to the cheery nature of the song, with humour being intertwined into the narrative.
RADIOHEAD - FAKE PLASTIC TREES
Radiohead's musical style has been described asart rock,alternative rock, electronica,experimental rock,progressive rock,grunge, art pop, andelectronic rock. Jonny Greenwood said Radiohead strive to find a middle ground between their experimental influences and straightforward rock music, and were driven by a desire not to repeat themselves rather than to be "experimental".
The music video for Fake Plastic Trees is conceptual, with a lack of any clear narrative. There is a clear link/relationship (Andrew Goodwin) between the lyrics and the visuals, with the use of plastic.
As sombre and sinister as the visuals are, there is bright colouring and colour pop used consistently. There is personal identification, letting your inner child loose, kicking boxes and going wild in the super market, escapism.
Vernallis, there is a hint of a narrative but it is mostly non-narrative and ellipse present. Some Proppian archetypes but they are not developed. The shot with the surveillence, they are trapped and being watched
Younger woman, older woman, older man, younger men representations. 'Colour pop' bright colours juxtaposed. Open narrative, the end is the beginning.
HALSEY - GHOSTS
At the start of the video there is a long diegetic intro and amedium long shot/long shot of a city with high skyscrapers and lots of banners everywhere with Japanese writing on. This denotes the setting to be urban and a 'big city' perhaps in the country of Japan. However, the location hasn't been intentionally anchored, it has been left as polysemicwith asian signifiers through Japanese script. The issue here is globalisation - where is this city - this is a city anywhere - not western or eastern which is an aspect of representation andpost-modernism, a refusal to accept a certain reality - any place any reality.
The ‘colour pop’ apsect: The coloured lighting, neon colours, pastel colours, the slow motion effect on the characters moving, layering effect, shots being faded into each other. Almost bokeh. The costumes used in the video e.g. the pink bob wig, red lipstick, choker, black eyeshadow, black eyeliner.
Laura Mulvey's male gaze is somewhat exploited in this music video through the close ups and medium close up shots at the start of the video of Halsey and another girl's body. They are heavily glamourised through the use of high key lighting, sometimes with the use of colour gels and also colour correction. This is one of the key conventions of the electropop genre (colour correction, SFX, use of colour gels). I am influenced by this video to use colour gels for lighting in my music video on the lip syncing footage of the singer and on some of the narrative shots.Semiotics of science fiction: she’s being scanned and strobe lights, flickering.
OLIVIA RODRIGO - GET HIM BACK
Extensive continuity. Some narrative, contradicting Vernallis' point that music videos are too elliptical to have a narrative. Shooting a long shot so the editing software can match up. Since "Get Him Back" is a breakup song, the video tells a narrative story that reflects the song's lyrics, having an illustrative narrative (Goodwin).The video includes dynamic camera angles and stylistic colour grading that enhance the mood and atmosphere of the song.
All filmed on Iphone. Basically a glorified Apple campaign, we could implement a sponsored by Apple aspect into social media or video. Violent imagery of the knife would be considered by the BBFC as imitable behavior. Something to avoid in our music video. Extensive usage of match cutting, something we could implement. Throwing something towards the camera, smooth match cut.
DOJA CAT - AGORA HILLS
Mix of analog and digital camera, links to retro mania (Simon Reynolds). Similar to auteur Anton Corbijn - Enjoy the Silence Depeche mode. Used only film.
Mise-en-scene: The bedroom scene is pinky and frilly, binary opposition (Levi Strauss) of the innocence of a child's bedroom with the violence of the rest of the music video. Something we can implement: juxtapose girly Olivia with punk Olivia. We could replicate her look: exaggerated make-up and hair. The contrast of girlish innocence but hints of sexuality and male gaze (Laura Mulvey). Lighting. colour pop of pastels and use of lanterns.
His theory suggests that media texts contain a variety of messages that are created by producers and then understood by audiences. It is an active audience theory, which means that meaning is found in the text and then interpreted by the audience, compared to passive audience theories such as the hypodermic needle, assuming meaning is conveyed directly from a media text. There are three types:
1. PREFERRED READING
Preferred reading is how creators want someone to respond, based on the meaning they had created. The way in which the original author intended the text to be recieved based on the meaning they had created.
2. NEGOTIATED READING
Negotiated/contested reading where some part of preferred reading is rejected or not recognized. The audience agrees with some parts but reject other.
3. OPPOSITIONAL READING
Oppositional reading consciously rejecting or mostly not recognizing preferred reading. The conscious or subconscious rejection of the authors preferred reading
An example of this would be Taylor Swift’s music video for Bad Blood. Thepreferred reading of the video would be for the audience to accept the representation of Swift’s star persona. That she is a strong independent female and an influential popular culture icon. An oppositional reading might be that the representations of females are overly sexualised, and appeal to the male gaze (Laura Mulvey).
A negotiated readingor otherwise known as a contested reading would be viewing her as the empowering figure she is presented as while still acknowledging the video creates unrealistic standards.
Encoding and Decoding:
The producer encodes messages and values into their media which are then decoded by the audience. However, different audience members will decode the media in different ways and possibly not in the way the producer originally intended.
The hypodermic needle model:
The hypordermic needle model believes that the media can have a direct and immediate effect on the audience. This model sees the audience as a 'homogeneous mass' (all the same), as passive and believing what they see in the media without questioning the content, therefore it is a passive audience theory.
