Analysis of popular music videos. These documents were created to generate an understanding of the key features in a music video, how these features change depending on genre, and what I could use in my music video.
Introductory Analysis 1. Downtown by Macklemore FT. Ryan Lewis
What is the purpose of a music video? Mise-en-scene, Cinematography, Performace and Editing. 2. I need some fine wine and you, you need to be nicer by The Cardigans
Music videos serve as an aid to the publicity of the artist, in order to sell more tour tickets, and albums. I have included images of the album cover, tour poster and single cover. As you can see, it almost looks as if the images used are screenshots from the music video. Not only is this an example of convergence across multiple media technologies, but it is a smart marketing practice by the record label, because whenever you see the video, you are reminded of the tour poster etc.
Male and Female Gaze
Male Gaze Theory - Laura Mulvey 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' (1975) Mulvey uses psychoanalysis 'as a political weapon' to prove how mainstream cinema manipulates visual pleasure. Scopophilia = pleasure in looking - Sigmund Freud (1905) in 'Three Essays'. The most pleasurable thing to look at is the human form and the human face.
Andrew Goodwin Andrew Goodwin is a media theorist and he considers that music videos compromise of 6 parts. I made a video, putting his theory into practice: 4. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5Jo3I-HLBqHUTdLUEpyTnZkaDg (please use this link if the player below does not work)
Redundant and Entropic Redundant and Entropic features in music videos. Redundant features are what you expect to see in that genre of music video. Entropic features are unexpected in that genre, can even be features that are rarely in any music video of any genre. 5. Swish Swish - Katy Perry Ft. Nicki Minaj contains almost half entropic and half redundant features.