Timelime of Music Videos

Preliminary Task

This was my groups final edited version of our Preliminary Task. We used the song Live Forever by Oasis.

Richard Dyer

Richard Dyer

Richard Dyer wrote his first full-length book 'Stars' in 1979. In the book he developed the idea that the viewers' perception of a film is heavy influenced by the perception of its stars it and reviews determine the way that audiences experience the film.

Dyer analysed critics' writing, magazines, and advertising and the films themselves.

Star Theory
The study of stars as media components of media texts demand that there should be a distinction between artist who are known for performing pop music or who are known as 'pop stars' who have an identity or persona which is not strictly based on their music but their image, characteristics etc.

Stars can be seen as constructed, artificial images, even if they are shown to be 'real' or genuine with real emotions etc.
This helps if they have a USP which can be copied and their representation may be metonymic.
Pop stars are a creation from the record label to gain popularity. This can be a negative as some stars could only last a very short time and then go out of the limelight.

Star Profile

Vernallis

Vernallis

Carol Vernallis theory is based on music editing. Her theory is based around 4 key concepts that all relate to the way a music video is produced. 
These concepts are:
- Narrative
- Editing
- Camera Movement/Framing
- Diegesis

Narrative
- video is a visual response to the narrative (whatever happens in the video reflects the lyrics)
- may not always be completed so will be disjointed and disconnected. this means the video could lead to many unanswered questions throughout the video by the viewer.

Editing
- dear convention of music editing is that the video may disrupt or break the conventions of continuity editing.
- editing may be bought to the foreground, become visible and not hidden 
- the video will have a style of editing running throughout that is distinctive to that video. 

Camera Movement/Framing
- establishing shots are one of the key features of a music video and are used frequently throughout.
- other key shots are medium and close up shots which establish the artist.
- style of framing is distinctive to the video and camera may move in time with the lyrics.
- Master shots are very common in music videos.

Diegesis
- setting of the music video.
- diegesis is will be revealed quite slowly.
- Repetition is key throughout the music video as some frames will appear more important than others.

Goodwin

Goodwin

Goodwin theory "music videos ignore common narrative as they are essentially advertisements. As consumers, we make our own meaning of a song in our mind: a music video can anchor meaning and gives the record company/artist a method of anchoring meaning"

Goodwin explains his theory within a music video using six different conventions.

1. A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals which illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics.

2. Thought Beats: Seeing the sounds (the relationship between the music and the visuals which illustrate, amplify and contradict). 

3. Genre-related style and iconography present

4. Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist: the creation of a star image to promote a recognisable brand image. 

5. Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females. 

6. Intertextual references to other media texts may be present, especially humorous videos.

What Music means to me

Music Videos

Music Videos

For this task I chose three songs. each song was from the three different music video types, Performance, Concept and narrative.


Peformance




Concept





Narrative