Music VideosMiss Dunn

Starter: what are Andrew Goodwin’s five

characteristics?

Andrew Goodwin Genre- videos should represent stereotypes and conventions of

the genre. e.g, girl band = dancing. Sound and Vision- clear relationship between lyrics and visuals.

for example the video can be- Illustrative- the visuals literally represent the lyrics. Contradictory- the visuals contrast with the lyrics. Amplification- manipulation of the audience through repetition of

key meanings. Disjuncture- the songs meaning is ignored. Notions of Looking- we are ‘watching’ the performer and gaining

pleasure from it. Related to voyeurism. Typically features windows and mirrors etc.

Star Image- promotion of the star through the video using frequent close ups and recurring motifs to represent the artist.

Intertextuality- reference to other media texts (such as other songs, films etc.). Allows the audience to quickly decode the meaning.

Simon Frith Simon Frith stated that “music videos

may be characterised by three broad typologies: performance, narrative and conceptual” (1988)

Performance Performance videos, the most common

type (Frith 1988) feature the star or group singing in concert to wildly enthusiastic fans.

The aim is to convey a sense of the in-concert experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmXLzY8kbYA

Performance Performance videos that display the

star or group in the studio remind the viewer that the soundtrack and album are still important.

“Performance oriented visuals cue viewers that, indeed, the recording of the music is the most significant element” (Gow, 1992)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGPeNN9S0Fg

Narrative A video may tell any kind of story in linear,

cause-effect sequencing. Love stories are the most common narrative mode in music video and normally follow the pattern 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).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M97vR2V4vTs

Conceptual Conceptual videos rely on poetic form, primarily

metaphor (Frith, 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).

“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” (Frith 1988)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuZE_IRwLNI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O1_3zBUKM8

Video Analysis Continuing on with your video analysis,

consider how Frith’s theory, which of his three typologies is your video?

Performance? Narrative? Conceptual? What about Andrew Goodwin’s theory?

How does that apply?

You will be continuing this into next lesson.

Video Analysis In your video analysis you should include: Shot type Camera (position, angle and movement) Transition (editing) Mise-en-scene Representation Narrative Genre Iconography Audience Micro and Macro Elements!

Richard Dyer “Pop performer” and “pop star” are not

the same thing. ‘Pop stars’ have lasting significance

and have “brand awareness.”

Stars as Constructions Pop stars are constructed, they are artificial

images, even if they are represented as being “real people”.

Helps if they have a USP – they can therefore be copied or parodied because of it.

Their representation may be metonymic. Pop stars have the advantage over film stars

in that their constructed image may be much more consistent over a period of time and is not consistent over a period of time and is not dependent on the creative input of others.

Dyer states: “A star is an image not a real person

this is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (e.g. advertising, magazines etc. as well as films [music]).”

Stars as Constructions Yet that construction process is neither automatic

nor fully understood. Record companies think they know about it — but witness the number of failures on their books. TV programmes such as The X Factor show us the supposed construction process, how an ordinary person is groomed, styled and coached into fulfilling a set of record company and market expectations. This is not true stardom, which must happen through a combination of factors. None of them labelled 'X'.

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

As a record buying public, we prefer to believe in stars who are their own and our constructions rather than a transparent offering designed explicitly to appeal to our blander taste buds served up by a record company interested only in our wallets.

Industry and Audience Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve a

purpose — to make money out of audiences, who respond to various elements of a star persona by buying records and becoming fans.

Stars are the cogs around which a plethora of record company gears find themselves turning. Record companies nurture and shape their stars — as the TV talent show processes have shown us. They tend to manufacture what they think audiences want, hence the 'photocopied' nature of many boy bands, teen bands etc.

However, there are whole markets out there who are not convinced by the hype and don't want to spend their money on blandness. The record industry also has a duty to provide bands/artists who are perceived as 'real' (for 'real, maybe read 'ugly' or unpolished) for these audiences. Stars can also be created by this route.

Pop stars, whatever their nature, are quite clearly the product of their record company — and they must be sold.

“Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings.”

Industry and Audience The music industry is well aware of the range of audiences it caters to, the perky

pre-school Tweenie fan to the ageing hippy, and it does its best to keep us all happy.

Historically, the industry has provided us with a range of commodities all with different appeal. One way to achieve this is by producing new stars of different types playing constantly mutating genres of music - there's always something and someone fresh to choose from (important for the younger audience).

Another way is to produce a star with long-lasting appeal, who, once their brand is established, can cater to a fan audience for decades (in the way U2 or the Rolling Stones have done).

Unfortunately, these methods are oppositional. The 'conveyor belt' approach to new stars means that talent isn't developed, and a star's value may be very short-lived. A star may only be significant or relevant for two years, or two albums.

Too much focus on 'golden oldies' means that younger fans can't identify with stars, whom they see as belonging to their parents' generation. A healthy music industry develops both types of talent, and generates a diverse range of stars, who mean different things to different audience segments.

Many pundits who say that the music industry is in the doldrums claim it is because this range of meanings is absent, or because the meaning of the modern star is superficial and transient.

Ideology and Culture Stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes, and promote a

certain ideology. Audience interest in these values enhances their 'star quality', and it is through conveying beliefs, ideas, and opinions outside music that performers help create their star persona.

A star may initiate a fashion trend, with legions of fans copying their hairstyle and clothing. Stars initiate or benefit from cultural discourse (e.g. via their Twitter feed), and create an on-going critical commentary. Now more than ever before, social networks give pop stars the opportunity to establish their own values outside their music. Lady Gaga tweets frequently about LGBT issues, and expects her Little Monsters to engage with that discourse just as much as she expects them to listen to her music.

Stardom, and star worship in general is a cultural value in itself. Ideologies drawn upon include materialism and sexuality. Whole sites of institutional support (e.g. radio & TV shows, magazines, websites) are devoted to star scrutiny, and it seems we can never get enough information.

Stars also provide us with a focal point for our own cultural thinking — particularly to do with Youth & Sexuality.

Character & Personality A star begins as a "real" human, possessing gender & race

characteristics, and existing against a socio-historic background. The star transformation process turns them into a construct, but the construct has a foundation in the real. We tend to read them as not-entirely-fictional, as being are very much of their time and culture, the product of a particular generation.

Stars provide audiences with a focus for ideas of 'what people are supposed to be like' (e.g. for women, thin/beautiful) - they may support hegemony by conforming to it (thin/beautiful) or providing difference (fat/still lovable).

Much of the discussion of stars in celebrity magazines is about how stars compare to the current hegemonic ideal, and how we compare to the stars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THdoZMeJx1Y

Dyer states: “In these terms it can be argued that stars are representations

of persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human being in this society. There is a good deal at stake in such conceptions. On the one hand, our society stresses what makes them like others in the social group/class/gender to which they belong. This individualising stress involves a separation of the person's "self" from his/her social "roles", and hence poses the individual against society. On the other hand society suggests that certain norms of behaviour are appropriate to given groups of people, which many people in such groups would now wish to contest (e.g. the struggles over representation of blacks, women and gays in recent years).Stars are one of the ways in which conceptions of such persons are promulgated.”

Richard Dyer – The Stars (BFI Education 1979)

Character & Personality Film stars are represented primarily through their

roles — written by faceless screenwriters. The personality and characteristics making them similar/different are created for them by others, and their overall image is constructed from many fragmented parts, which may or may not contradict each other. They may indeed represent a perceived appropriate norm of behaviour but it takes several similar movies to create this effect. Film stars may survive individual flops — there are always other movies in the can — and embody several different values simultaneously. It's more difficult if you're in the music industry.

Character & Personality Pop stars, on the other hand, establish their character and

personality through songs and performance and will strive for immediate star identity with a first album. They appear to have more control over their persona in that many of them write their own songs, and that their body of work develops, chronologically over time, along with society.

Pop stars don't do aberrant costume dramas or science fiction movies which take them out of place in time and space and confuse their audience.

They produce 45-74 minutes of music which gives a clear indication of their interests, moods, appetites and lifestyle at a particular point in time; audiences read music=person, and will base their understanding of the star's persona on the sentiments expressed by their songs.

This understanding may be very personal and intimate, the star's music can infiltrate every corner of a fan's life. Albums are continually read and re-read as texts think of the 100+ times you might listen to a track, whereas films tend to be watched once or twice only.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1oM3kQpXRo

Character & Personality Because a pop star's persona is constructed on the basis of

a narrow text, continually re-read and reassessed, this may lead, in many cases, to second album syndrome, when an artist is unable to sustain their persona over a period of time (largely because they got rich off the back of the first album and bought all the houses, cars, etc. they'd ever wanted) and they are unable to create a consistent account of their character and personality in their second major release. The root of their persona then disappears, or becomes confused.

A pop star's persona, therefore, as depicted in terms of character and personality, is a fragile thing which needs constant nurturing, and is the product of constant discourse between the star and his or her audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3D5FwwtNVM

Steve Archer’s Theory There needs to be a strong and coherent

relationship between narrative and performance in music promos.

Music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band.

A carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor.

Video Analysis You should have made a start on your

video analysis yesterday. Which video are you doing?

Video Analysis In your video analysis you should include: Shot type Camera (position, angle and movement) Transition (editing) Mise-en-scene Representation Narrative Genre Iconography Audience Micro and Macro Elements!

Don’t forget:• Firth• Goodwin• Dyer• Archer