Brandon fry

Genre analysis: Music video

Music videos are characterized by three broad types:

performance narrative conceptual

(Firth, 1988). These types describe the form and content selected by the director or artist to attract viewers and to convey a direct or indirect

message.

Performance videos the most common type (Firth 1988) feature the star or group singing in concert to wildly enthusiastic fans. The goal is to convey a sense of the in-concert experience. Gow (1992) suggests "the predominance of performance as a formal system in the popular clips indicates that music video defines itself chiefly by communicating images of artists singing and playing songs" (pp. 48-49). Performance videos, especially those that display the star or group in the studio, remind the viewer that the soundtrack is still important. "Performance oriented visuals cue viewers that, indeed, the recording of the music is the most significant element" (Gow, 1992, p. 45).

Narrative videos present a sequence of events. A video may tell any kind of story in linear, cause-effect sequencing. Love stories, however, are the most common narrative mode in music video. The narrative pattern is one of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen (Schwichtenberg, 1992).

Conceptual videos rely on poetic form, primarily metaphor (Firth, 1988). The conceptual video can be metaphysical poetry articulated through visual and verbal elements. "These videos make significant use of the visual element, presenting to the eye as well as the ear, and in doing so, conveying truths inexpressible discursively" (Lorch, 1988, p. 143). Conceptual videos do not tell a story in linear fashion, but rather create a mood, a feeling to be evoked in the experience of viewing (Firth, 1988). Conceptual videos contain the possibility for multiple meanings as the metaphor or metaphoric sequence is interpreted by the viewer. "Thus the metaphorical relations between images structured according to musical and visual rhymes and rhythms play a suggestive role in soliciting multiple meanings from us, the viewers/listeners, that resonate with our experience--something we can feel and describe" (Schwichtenberg, 1992 p. 124)

Brandon fry

Understanding Genre: Analysis of Music Videos

Using the ideas covered above, fill out the boxes below after watching the music video for ‘Call The Shots’ by Girls Aloud.

Use examples from the text to explain the extent to which it conforms to or deviates from its genre.

In your analysis you should use examples from the text to explain why it uses and/or deviates from convention.

Girls Aloud - Call The Shots – (dir. Sean de Sparengo 2007 )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPWUyAZZfK0&feature=artist

Key Theorists: A Reminder

Chandler:

Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content (such as themes or

settings) and/or form (including structure and style)

Neale:

Genre can be defined by instances of repetition and difference genre is part of a process of “mental machinery” between “industry, text

and subject.”

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Genre elements Conventions presented in the Call The Shots Video

Performers/Characters – representations, stereotypes, behaviour, body language, specific pop stars

Performance as they sing and dance. All women in the video represented as objectified and independent. This goes against the stereotype. Shows bad behaviour when burning the picture. Also men are objectified such as the scene in the shower.

Genre Type: Performance, Narrative or Conceptual? Are there elements of each? Describe them. If there is a narrative, what type of narrative is it? (Linear/Non Linear?)

Performance based with the singing and dancing. Narrative as there can be a storyline with the use of the phone and burning the picture, however it is more hidden. The genre can also be seen as conceptual as they can be conveying the truth of a storyline of some sort of affair as she burns the picture.

Iconography – props, symbolic codes

The burning picture is symbolic of a bad experience with the opposite gender. White flags on the beach showing innocence.

Setting- mise en scene At home alone representing the storyline then moving to the beach in a peaceful area with just girls there.

Technical and audio codes – camera use, editing, lighting, diegetic/non diegetic sound, sfx

Neale’s ‘Mental Machinery’: How does the text meet audience expectations? How does it conform to convention and/or deviate from convention?What ideologies are encoded in the music video? What does the pop genre seem to say about what it is like to live in the world, as represented in the video?

Brandon fry

Now repeat the activity with the following video:

Radiohead: Knives Out (dir. Michel Gondry, 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ1iMQA0egc

Genre elements Conventions presented in the Knives Out VideoPerformers/Characters – representations, stereotypes, behaviour, body language, specific performers

Strange behaviour

Genre Type: Performance, Narrative or Conceptual? Are there elements of each? Describe them. If there is a narrative, what type of narrative is it? (Linear/Non Linear?)

Narrative genre as the video gives a sequence of events on a train in the tv, the tv being in the hospital room.

Iconography – props, symbolic codes

When the girl plays the body in the operation game literally meaning shes having a operation

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Setting- mise en scene Hospital area- doctors patientsEquipment and bedsPicture frames of the couple to show past memories

Technical and audio codes – camera use, editing, lighting, diegetic/non diegetic sound, sfx

Handheld camera showing a documentaryLow lighting used at most times

Neale’s ‘Mental Machinery’: How does the text meet audience expectations? How does it conform to convention and/or deviate from convention?What ideologies are encoded in the Knives Out video? How do the ideologies presented in the Radiohead video differ from a conventional pop video? What does the genre of alternative rock seem to say about what it is like to live in the world?

Homework: Write a 500-800 word analysis, commenting upon how each video conforms to or deviates from music video conventions. Are there any similarities in style/content? What are the main differences?

Remember to quote the theories and theorists that we have studied so far.

Deadline: Friday 16th March