Research - Directors of Music Videos.

Sophie Muller

• Born in London, 31st January 1967.
• Studied a Masters in Film and Television at the Royal College of Art.
  

• Made music videos for Eurythmics, Sade, Shakespears Sister, Bjork, Blur, Radiohead, Coldplay, Dido, Maroon 5, Gwen Stefani, Leona Lewis, Kings Of Leon, No Doubt and Beyoncé.

Taken from a interview with 'Music Video Wire' (http://www.mvwire.com/2002/02/11/music-video-director-sophie-muller/)
Muller’s videos often have a rough, raw edge and a sense of spontaneity, along with an often-surreal use of color, juxtaposing bright, otherworldly primaries against monochromatic backgrounds. However, she eschews the concept of sticking with a ‘look,’ avoiding storyboards and always trying to come up with a fresh approach. About her process, she said to MVW that ‘I don’t do story boards, because if I do one, I can’t be bothered to do the video anymore–its like I have already done it. To me, making videos is really exciting and creative, but if I know what I am going to do, it’s not interesting to me. I like to go into it not quite knowing what is going to happen; then everything is fresh and exciting. Every musician you work with is different, and the way they look at themselves and their work is different. I look at that artist and think, ‘You’re different; what can I do with you that I have not done before?’

Jonas Åkerlund

• Swedish film and music video director, born November 10, 1965.
• Previously a member of a Swedish
  
• Made music videos for Maroon 5, Blink 182, Christina Aguilera, Robbie Williams, Metallica, Madonna and Lady Gaga.
• His most recent popular music video and short film was 'Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé - Telephone' which had a vast amount of hits.
  

This is part of an interview with Jonas Åkerlund (JÅ) from ‘The Scene’ (TS) on CNN in October 2006.
TS: As a filmmaker, is it about creating art or having a responsibility to educate?
JÅ: When someone's paying you to do a job, which is most of the time, you always have to respect your clients. But if I could make a beautiful film and at the same time make people think, then that's perfect. It doesn't always work -- music can just be an artist selling an album, looking good and doing a song -- but some of the music videos I've done have been great opportunities to show other sides of life that you wouldn't necessarily see.
TS: Have you ever done that but it's not worked?
JÅ: Sometimes it doesn't work -- Madonna and I did a video for American Life and we took a heavy antiwar statement. We ended up not showing the video because it became too graphic and the timing was just horrible. We shot the video before the war in Iraq broke out but it started during post production. You've got to be careful, you've got to make sure that you know what you're talking about and the timing is right because a video could potentially influence a lot of people.

Part of an interview from ‘Wanna Haves Lifestyle’(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbkbS1mnz3Y)

How do you choose which song you want to make a video for?
“…idea driven if I have a pretty good idea I want to do it and if I have a hard time to write an idea for a song, I turn it down. And also time scheduling; it’s an important factor because I’ve turned down a lot of jobs because I don’t have enough time.”

Research - Codes and Conventions of Music Video.

Codes and Conventions of Music Video

[From Pete Fraser Teaching Music Video (BFI, 2004)]

• Camerawork

As with any moving image text, how the camera is used and how images are sequenced will have a significant impact upon meaning. Camera movement, angle and shot distance all need to be analysed. Camera movement may accompany movement of performers (walking, dancing, etc) but it may also be used to create a more dynamic feel to stage performance, by for instance constantly circling the band as they perform on stage.

The close up does predominate, as in most TV, partly because of the size of the screen and partly because of the desire to create a sense of intimacy for the viewer. It also emphasises half of the commodity on sale (not just the song, but the artist, and particularly the voice). John Stewart of Oil Factory said that he sees the music video as essentially having the aesthetics of the TV commercial, with lots of close ups and lighting being used most prominently for the star’s face.

• Editing

Though the most common form of editing associated with the music promo is fast cut montage, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on first viewing thus ensuring multiple viewing, there are videos which use slow pace and gentler transitions to establish mood. This is particularly apparent for the work of many female solo artists with a broad audience appeal, such as Dido.

Often enhancing the editing are digital effects which play with the original images to offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience. This might take the form of split screens, colourisation and of course blockbuster film style CGI.

• Star Image

As Richard Dyer has noted:
“ a star is an image constructed from a range of materials” (Richard Dyer 1979).

For pop music these materials include the songs (their lyrical themes and musical structures/genres), the record covers (singles and albums and the image of the star they present), media coverage (from interviews about career and private life through to tabloid gossip), live performance (the image through the stage show) and arguably most significantly the music videos, which may draw upon the image presented in each of the other aspects.

Each video may also draw upon its predecessor both in reinforcing the star’s existing image and in taking the image on further, perhaps in new directions. Thus even more than Hollywood films may be seen as vehicles for their stars, music videos will act as a showcase for their talents and a significant part in the construction and maintenance of their image.

• Voyeurism

This idea comes from Freud, and has been much used in Media Studies, particularly in explaining the gendered pleasures of cinema. Broadly it refers to the idea of looking in order to gain sexual pleasure. It has been argued that the male viewer’s gaze at the screen is geared to notions of voyeurism in that it is a powerful controlling gaze at the objectified female on display. In music promos, as we have seen, the female on display has been a staple element through the Scopitones to Duran Duran and beyond. Goodwin argues that the female performer will frequently be objectified in this fashion, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star. In male performance videos too the idea of voyeuristic treatment of the female body is often apparent with the use of dancers as adornments flattering the male star ego.

The idea becomes more complex when we see the male body on display and we might raise questions about how the female viewer is invited to respond. Equally, the apparently more powerful independent female artists of recent years, from Madonna onwards, have added to the complexity of the gaze by being at once sexually provocative and apparently in control. This offers interesting questions for discussion of the range of audience experiences of music video and the contradictory meanings they may evoke.

The idea of voyeurism is also frequently evident in music video through a system of screens within screens- characters shown watching performers or others on television, via webcams, as images on a video camera screen or CCTV within the world of the narrative. Indeed the proliferation of such motifs has reached a point where it has become almost an obsession in music promos.

• Intertextuality

The music video is often described as ‘postmodern’, a slippery term which is sometimes used as a substitute for intertextuality. Broadly, if we see music promos as frequently drawing upon existing texts in order to spark recognition in the audience, we have a working definition of ‘intertextuality’. Not all audiences will necessarily spot the reference and this need not massively detract from their pleasure in the text itself, but it is often argued that greater pleasure will be derived by those who know the reference and are somehow flattered by this.

It is perhaps not surprising that so many music videos draw upon cinema as a starting point, since their directors are often film school graduates looking to move on eventually to the film industry itself. From Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ (Mary Lambert 1985, drawing on ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’) to 2Pac and Dr Dre’s ‘California Love’ (Hype Williams 1996, drawing on ‘Mad Max’) there are many examples of cinematic references which dominate music video. Television is often a point of reference too, as in The Beastie Boys’ spoof cop show titles sequence for Sabotage (Spike Jonze 1994) or REMs recent news show parody ‘Bad Day’ (Tim Hope 2003).

John Stewart sees visual reference in music video coming from a range of sources, though the three most frequent are perhaps cinema, fashion and art photography. Fashion sometimes takes the form of specific catwalk references and sometimes even the use of supermodels, as by George Michael in both ‘Father Figure’(Morahan/Michael 1988) and ‘Freedom’ (Fincher 1990). Probably the most memorable example of reference to fashion photography is Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted to Love’ (Donovan 1986), parodied many times for its use of mannequin style females in the band fronted by a besuited Palmer. Shania Twain copied it for her ‘Man I feel like a woman’ (Paul Boyd 1999) and Tamra Davis directed a $350 parody of it for Tone Loc’s ‘Wild Thing’ (1988).

For the near future, John Stewart suspects that the influence of video games will predominate for the younger audience with the more plasticised look of characters emerging (as seen for example in Robbie Williams’ ‘Let Love be your Energy’ dir. Olly Reed 2001 and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers ‘Californication’ dir.Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris 2000)

His description of the music video “incorporating, raiding and reconstructing” is essentially the essence of intertextuality, using something with which the audience may be familiar to generate both potentially nostalgic associations and new meanings. It is perhaps more explicitly evident in the music video than in any other media form, with the possible exception of advertising.

• Narrative and Performance

Narrative in songs is rarely complete, more often fragmentary, as in poetry. The same is true of music promos, which more often suggest storylines or offer complex fragments of them in non-linear order. In doing this the music video leaves the viewer with the desire to see it again if only to catch the bits missed on first viewing. As Steve Archer puts it:
“Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be a part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor. Sometimes, the artist (especially the singer) will be a part of the story, acting as narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip-synch close-up and the miming of playing instruments that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick it.” (Steve Archer 2004)

The video allows the audience access to the performer in a much greater range of ways than a stage performance could. Eye contact and facial gestures via the close up, role playing through the narrative and mise-en-scene will present the artist in a number of ways which would not be possible in a live concert.

The mise-en-scene may be used as a guarantee of what Simon Frith terms ‘authenticity’ as in the stage performance/use of a rehearsal room by a band whose musical virtuosity is their main selling point. It can be important to a narrative-based video to establish setting and relationship to existing film or televisual genres. Equally it may be used as part of the voyeuristic context by suggesting a setting associated with sexual allure, such as a sleazy nightclub or boudoir. Or finally, as John Stewart suggests, it may be used to emphasise an aspirational lifestyle for the audience, as in the current dominance of a futuristic look with emphasis on the latest gadgetry.

Research - Musical Genres

Musical genre

Musical genres are different categories of music which share a certain style or have certain elements in common.

Pop punk is a fusion music genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music. The genre is a strand of alternative rock, which merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes and loud guitars.
The genre has been described as having "a radio friendly sheen to their music, but still maintaining much of the speed and attitude of classic punk rock".

The band we have chosen is a pop punk band and the track we chose follows the typical traits of the pop punk genre by means of the punk-like fast tempo and loud guitar mixed with pop elements.
In music videos of this music genre, there are fast cuts, close-ups, fun storylines with a comic feel.