sound, image, text

Lecture SixWed Aug 28, 2008

MUSIC VIDEOIMAGE RADIO

Genealogy of Music Video - Visual Music

• DEFINITION: a short film, video or moving image derived from or designed to accompany a piece of music, commonly a song.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

• VISUAL MUSIC: 1920’s Germany, Oscar Fischinger, Walter

Ruttmann, Hans Richter, Themerson’s began making animated

films synchronised to jazz & classical music.

• Visual music, sometimes called "colour music", refers to the

use of musical structures in visual imagery.

• Since ancient times artists have longed to create with moving

lights a music for the eye comparable to the effects of sound for

the ear. – Dr. William Moritz,

Genealogy of Music Video – Image Jukeboxes

• SOUNDIE (USA 1941) & SCOPITONE (France, 1960): jukeboxes based on technology developed during World War II, where color 16 mm film clips with a magnetic soundtrack were shown on demand.

• copacabana scopitone

Genealogy of Music Video - Talkies

• HOLLYWOOD CINEMA

• The Jazz Singer (1927) is the first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. The movie stars Al Jolson, who performs six songs.

Mammy by Al Jolson

Genealogy of Music VideoMusical Films to Music Video

• From the Hollywood Musical to Music Video: The Grafting that Lies Beneath Contemporary Australian Musicals - Diana Sandars

• SupraDiegetic - ”leaving normal day-to-day causality behind, the music creates a utopian space in which all singers and dancers achieve a unity unimaginable in the now superseded world of temporal, psychological causality” – Rick Altmann

• Supra (Latin for "above")

Genealogy of Music Video - (M)TV

• TELEVISION: Bandstand (1952), Top of the Pops (1964, BBC) and

Countdown promote artist such as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bill

Haley & the Comets. Artists perform on TV-stage to live audience.

• RECORD LABELS begin creating promotional videos that replace

live TV-stage performances in the 1970s.

– COUNTDOWN 1974-1987 weekly Australian Music TV show on ABC.

– MTV begins 1981 - first clip: Video Killed the Radio Star.

Countdown Intro

Genealogy of Music Video - Online Distribution

• INTERNET: new distribution of music video

via Google Video, Apple iTunes, MySpace.

YouTube etc

• Pitchfork Top 100 Videos

Video Images / Video Identities

Identity – The comprehension of a group or individual as a discrete, separate entity, with a relation to other groups or individuals.

• Image / Identity is reinforced through visual style, physical appearance, props, location, camera treatment.

• ‘Social Identity’ is essential in defining a song as commodity: The video as vehicle for increasing commercial sales

• The video as vehicle for constant stylistic re-invention / re-construction eg Madonna, Kylie, Michael Jackson

• The video reinforces perceptions of power, authenticity, beauty (eg Madonna, - fashion, Bono- human rights, Kurt Cobain – angst, Thom Yorke – fragility, integrity)

Music, Lyrics & Video – A Potent Brew

• Videos construct specific relationships to the songs which produce new meanings or add to existing menaing

– Illustrating: video reflects the mood or literal narrative of the

song; visual images directly illustrate lyrics

– Amplifying: visual images heighten the meaning of the song

but may have no direct relationship to the lyrics/ musical

content

– Contradicting: visual images seem to have little relationship

or are directly anathema to the lyrics or musical elements

Representations of Identity

• Music videos construct and reproduce representations of:

– Race– Nationality– Class– Gender & Sexuality– Ideology & Opinion (war, environment, drugs, education)

– EXAMPLE – Ideological Messages in Devo – Beautiful World

Strategies of Representation

• Representation is articulated and reinforced in Music Video through various modes and strategies:

– VOYEURISM (‘peeping tom’ perspectives, extreme close-ups etc, the relation of audience / spectator to performer)

– EXHIBITIONISM (physical provocation, showing off, status, skill, power, omnipotence)

– LIFESTYLE (products, fashion, cultural and subcultural cues)

– NARRATIVITY (events with articulate attitude, morality, culture)

– VIDEO AESTHETIC (editing, camera angles, fidelity)

– MISE-EN-SCENE (props, settings, spatial design etc)

– GENRE SPECIFICITY (metal, hip-hop, punk)

– INTERTEXTUALITY

Nirvana – Heart Shaped Box

Lyrics or Song Narrative

Words function in complex and varying ways:

– EXPRESSIVE objects: merging with the melody and timbre of the voice to create a certain mood or feeling, eg ballads

– NARRATIVE: constructing story based, episodic events which may or may not resolve. creating a rhythmic or harmonic flow, often following the speech melody eg in rap and conveying meaning

– SOUNDS: absorbed into the musical phrasing, creating a rhythmic, timbrel or harmonic flow, eg nonsense language, scatology

Example: ‘I’m so Post Modern’ - The Bedroom Philosopher

Sound Image Relationships in Music Video

• The visual image in music video can be used to illustrate, amplify or contradict aspects of the sonic content, such as:

– SONIC TIMBRE may correspond with Visual Colour, Lighting or Effects

– SONIC TEXTURE may correspond with Visual Layering or Counterpoint

– SONIC RHYTHM may correspond with Visual Cuts or transitions

– SONIC MELODY / HARMONY may correspond with Camera Movement reflecting

melodic contour or rising gestures

– SONIC STRUCTURE may correspond with changes in Visual Location or

Narrative..

– SONIC HOOKS may correspond with recurring Visual Motifs

– SONIC FADE INS AND OUTS may correspond with Visual Fades

– How To Make A Beat

A Music Video Genre: Parody

• In parody one text or form comments on another and, to be successful, relies on recognition of both forms. A parody is generally meaningless without knowledge of the original. It relies on audience interpretation.

• Parody is a reframing device, seeking new modes of representation, often of history and past forms.

• Parody self-reflexive or self-conscious in style. illusion/ artifice is openly acknowledged.

• It has the potential for multiple interpretations and can be ambiguous (a thing can be both one thing and another).

Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues Weird Al Yankovic – Bob

Tasks & ReadingsTASK

Analyse a music video.

What is the relationship between the music, lyrics and image? How is the image / identity constructed? What does it represent? What meaning does it convey?

Continue to work on your presentations, commencing next week.

READING

Carol VERNALLIS. Chapter 9 Connections Among Music Image & Lyrics in Experiencing Music Video. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

references

• Carol VERNALLIS. Experiencing Music Video. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004

• Nicholas COOK. Analysing Musical Multimedia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998

• Andrew GOODWIN. Dancing at the Distraction Factory. London: Routledge, 1992

• Pete FRASER. Teaching Music Video, London: British Film Institute, 2005.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_sc%C3%A8ne