Assignment- Ideas for the music video

 
      

HOW FAR DO YOUR GROUPS IDEAS FOR THE MUSIC VIDEO CONFORM TO CONVENTION?

Individual as a group, we did our own textual analysis into comparable texts for analysing different music videos. Calculating up the results, our popular genre choice of music from our demographic research was ‘HARDCORE/COMMERCIAL DANCE’. As a group, we analysed the genre music videos and got an excellent idea of what the typical codes and conventions for that particular style of genre, which meant we had a clear idea of how we could represent the genre and artiste better by understanding the conventions.

As a group, we had similar ideas and common results whilst doing individual research; therefore we brought our ideas together and discussed how our research will make a high quality music video.

Typically we found that the stock setting was mainly portraying a dance scene, which meant it was usually located outside or in a night club. For example: Ultrabeat ‘Pretty Green Eyes’. This setting was located in a club and was the main connection between the storyline because it was focusing on a dancer’s life. Therefore our ideas for the music will be located in a club or a bedroom. This means the audience can relate to the character more if it’s located in a more realism setting. They can connect more to the setting location if its familiar which helps make the video more welcoming.

The characters in the music videos we analyzed all contained a female vocalist who is featured on the track. For example the video I analyzed Breeze vs Lost Witness ft. Naz - Rise Again, Naz the singer was featured in the video and was portrayed as the main character. Having the artiste featured in the video helps bring statues to video because it helps connect the audience more because they can see the artiste who sings the track.

We found that the female gender had a high influence in the videos and are represented as sexual objects. This was usually done by the position of the female vocalist in centre frame viewing in a medium close up of her face and her body.

(Breeze vs Lost Witness ft. Naz - Rise Again)

This immediately makes character seem provocative and gives her a sexual identity by the close up of her body.

This allows the audience to be aware of the artists importance in the song, however to attract them to the video. Our ideas for the music video will contain a female character, to attract the opposite gender by having a lot of medium close up of her face and body, which allows the audience to view the characters emotions and body language more. Nevertheless both genders can relate to the character both physical and emotionally.

The music videos we analyzed followed a constructed linear narrative however some didn’t have any connection between the track and video.

A bad example of a music video which didn’t follow a narrative structure was Breeze vs Lost Witness ft. Naz - Rise Again. The video was just focoused on the artiste singing and a couple of dancers dancing in the background. The setting had no connection to the song. It had no character functions and it was bit confusing.

We found that the music videos that followed a liner narrative with some relevance to the non- diegetic track being played in the background was a lot more engaging and effective.

A good example I found of a music video which followed a narrative structure and character functions was Basshunter ‘Now you’re gone’.

We see a princess:

A hero: these two are boyfriend and girlfriend, however they split up. The lyrics ‘Now Your Gone’ helps to relate the narrative to the music video. The setting is in a club and a bedroom. They use every day props such a mobile phones. They all get ready to go out on the night to a club. They bang into each other and make up. It all ends in a happy ending.

We will apply Propps theory, which follows a narrative structure and use the characters functions given roles such as a ‘princess’ and ‘hero’. This will be very effective in engaging the audience and will also give structure to the music video which means its audience won’t be disorientated.

Understand the Mise en scene of genre ‘HARDCORE/COMMERCIAL DANCE’ will make our video better. We found the lighting was low key which helped add an element of rebellion and made the characters seem more glamorous. The editing is very fast paced, however this is representing the genre of music about this video as well as following the rhythm and beats along the song. This effect makes the video more alive and fun.

There are a lot of jump cuts to the female artiste and the backing dancers.

The costume of the dancers follow the conventions of representing the hardcore music style, The costumes are very skimpy and revealing however, they are a lot more commercial than the typical raving outfit.

(Ultrabeat - Pretty green eyes)