The media products we have produced use, challenge and develop forms and conventions of real media products in many aspects.
Music Video
This is an group audio analysis of the way our music video challenges develops forms and conventions of real music videos. To get the best listening experience press play on the media player and scroll through the relevant pictures and videos (they are in order and there is no need to play all the way through the videos)
Music Video by mdcassidy
As you can see niether video shows an artist image and this is a trend for many artists of this genre.
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| Nero |
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| Daft Punk |
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| Deadmau5 |
All these DJ's have hidden Identities but still physical artist known for thier facelessness. This is the idea we exploited in our video with our DJ's but gave our singer a face.
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| Red and Black of Influx. |
Example of the slow editing of most dubstep videos:
We wanted to have a greater pace change in our video rather than it being almost solely slo-mo. We therefore played heavily with the speed of the clips we shot.
Carol Vernallis Theory Application to Music Video
In class we studied Carol Vernallis's theory on the common characteristics of music videos. Her theory can be split into four sub catagories narrative, editing, camera movement and framing and diegesis
1) Narrative
The theory states that the video is a visual response to the music. This is certainly true for 'Promises' as the visuals are edited very closely to the music and the pace and rhythm of the song. This is shown in the build ups of the song and the musical 'drops'. We attempted to balance narrative and perfomance as much as we could so that the narrative was understandable and so that the artist was promoted by the performance.
Our narrative is fairly fragmented as there are a number of jumps in it. One second everyone is bored and working and the next they are all up on thier feet dancing wildly. Also it is not necessarily a complete story as we do not know what happens to the teach once she is taken away which follows the theory that there is not necessarily a clear resolution.A mixture of the pace of the music and the build up of the narrative and the intensity of the performance drive the video forward and the naarrtive flows through the perfomance in a montage like style.
2) Editing
Like the theory states our editing attempts to match musical phrases and keep to the beat. The song has many pace changes and we found it great to exploit them visually. We went wild with the editing and in some areas of the video the number of cuts can be hard to follow as the audience watches it and there is an almost a complete disregard for the rules of continuity apart from the prologue narrative and a few match on action shots. The editing style is very fast paced and jumpy and plays around a lot with shot speed an awful lot. There are very few smooth transitions but many fancy editing styles for eye-candy.
3) Camera Movement and framing
There are many close ups and extreme shot types for athstetically pleasing visuals and to allow the audince to identify and familiarise themselves with our artist. Our style of movement of shot and framing changes throughout the video vary wildly. This is mainly down to the changes in pace and the variety in the music. The camera editing attempts to move in time with the music and the lyrics so that the music video flows smoothly and isn't too confusing for the viewer. Master shots are used frequently during the verses to show the band as a group and to act as a performance bed to the video.
4) Diegesis
The world of the music video is reavealed almost immidiatly in the prologue which within the 10-15 seconds that it is reveals to the audience that the narrative is taking place in a school and a detention. This is due to the fact that the teacher says this and detention is written on the board. Due to the montagy nature of the build up and the ratio between performance and narrative there is a lot of interruption of narrative action. There are many shots where the characters in the video move to the music in a way that is visually interesting and clever.
The gaps in the narrative create an enigma of sorts which makes them want to watch the video a second time to tie up loose ends they may have missed. This is aided to the fact that the pace of areas of our video are so fast that it is highly likey that the audience may miss them. There are a number of repetition including the strobe shot which crops up many times as a timing to beat effect and obviously repetition in the lyrics. Colours of red, black blue and white also repeat throughout the video.
Andrew Goodwin Theory Application to Music Video
We also studied the theory of Andrew Goodwin as part of research of music videos. He also came up with a theory of the typical characteristics of music videos and they can be summed up in seve catagories.
1) Genre Characteristics
Our video features many of the forms and conventions already in place in contemporary dubstep genre. Dubstep videos are known for thier beat cutting and fancy editing and this is something we bided with. The pace changes are also typical of videos of the genre as this type of music is prone to changes in pace. We used a lot of speeding up and slowing down of particular shots to maintain the pace changes and to follow the eye-candy style typical to the genre. Many of the shots taken are from technically interesting angles and have abnormal movement which a slightly skewed which pay homage to the artistic styles of other dubstep videos.
2) The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals
There is very little relationship to be found between the lyrics and the visuals in our video. The dis-juncture can easily identified from an analytical perspective. The narrative of the teacher gradually losing her power and giving in to dancing has very little to do with 'Promises' which is the theme of the song. However 'you've got me so high, how can I ever deny, you've got me so wild' relates to the edit of the performance due to the nature of the movement in the dancing.
3) The relationship between the music and the visuals
The correlation between the music and the visuals on the other hand is very strong. The video is edited to sympathise with almost every beat of the song whether there is a movement in shot that does this or a cut on the beat. This allows the visuals to work along with the pace of the song which changes dramatically over the three and a half minutes. During the verses the cut are slow paced and the shots are more relaxed both in terms of the camera and the actors. A little pace is gained in the visuals as the music pics up at the chorus and then there are man jump cuts increasing in number towards the drop. The visual bridge between 2:52 and 2:58 complements the music in a different way with a mixture of fast paste in the overlying strobe shot and slow pace in the underlying shot of the teacher which has a unique and interesting effect.
4) Close-ups, iconography of artist image, visual trademarks and motifs.
Like a vast majority of music videos there are a huge number of close ups on the artist members themselves and the main character in the narrative. These help to create the motif of the band and the link to the teacher. They emphasise the facelessness of the DJ's with thier masks and headphones and also show thier character. Cassie, the female lead singers beauty is amplified by the beauty shots and adds to the artist image created by the DJ's .
5) Reference to the notion of looking
Our video does have this. A number of times Cassie as the singer and as the teacher looks directly into the camera as if addressing the viewer personally, this is especially dominant at 2:29 and 2:35. Also the DJ's purposefully out of frame as if viewing the teacher in a number of shots during the second verse. Also during the narrative build up, our disruptive student looks at the teacher as he listens to his music.
6) Intertextual references
There are some intertextual references in our video. The DJ's look and style pay homage to Daft Punk and Deadmau5 as artists. Also the beginning of the video is very similar to the beginning of 5ive's 'Everybody Get Up' which we had done a remake of in the preliminary task.
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| Deadmau5 |
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| Daft Punk |
7) Performance, Narrative or Concept?
The video is a performance and narrative hybrid. It cuts between the performance of Influx with Cassie and the DJ's Red and Black and Cassie as the teacher in the narrative. The void between the performance and the narrative is closed as the DJ's enter the classroom and collect Cassie which brings the narrative and the performance together to an extent.
Album Cover
This is an audio analysis of our album cover and comparing it to other album covers breaks down the areas of the covers we have challenged in terms of genre and institutional features:
Album by mdcassidy
Website
Yet another audio analysis but this time to the website:
Website by mdcassidy
Conclusion
To conclude my answer, our video, album cover and website all use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of thier real world counter parts. We have used many of the ideas that already exist solely for thier popularity, for example the dubstep editing style of videos is very unique to the genre so we didn't feel it necessary to change. Conventions have been challenged in order to exploit what we think may have been overlooked in the industry and follow some niche examples. For example the idea of faceless DJ's but with an image is not very common however where it is done i.e. Daft Punk, Nero and Deadmau5 it has proven very popular and all these artists are successful in there own rights. We have developed forms and conventions in terms of genre to extend what already exists in terms of music video and album cover by giving our artist a face.
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