Richmix trip - the day in film

From previous posts, I have written about what I have learnt from the trip to Richmix studios. As we brought our flip camera with us, we were able to film the days events and together, myself and Elle have put together a "montage" of clips from the day.

We put "Supergrass - Alright" as we thought this went well with the days outing, especially the "see our friends, see the sites, were alright!" as we were all friends and on our way to the trip, we managed to take in many sites of london, enjoy the video!

Method of Analysis - Andrew Goodwin

Taken from his book written in the early 1980's about the music channel MTV,
Andrew Goodwin came up with a method of analysis about what is often found in most music vide os and what effect this has. There are 5 points which he covers which are:


- Genre Characteristics
- Visual relationship with lyrics and music
- Needs to sell the artist as a 'star'
- Voyerism
- Intertexuality (referring to something of a different media medium e.g Film/TV/Adverts)

Genre
There is always a certianstereotypical music video fro a certain genre characteristic. For example, Boyband videos are always considered as "cheesy" and usually are performance based rather then narrative. Also, in terms of mise en scene and costume, they are usually all dressed very similarly and are singing in the countryside or an open space.




Visuals and Relationships

Relating back to the candy shop video, the title of the song is a metaphor. He isn't buying any "candy to eat", but the candy for him is simply the half dressed girls in this "candy mansion". The popular 80's band "Madness" had a successful hit with the song "our house". In this video the band dress up as a whole family and show them living inside a house. This makes the visuals and relationships funny to watch as the band members are all male and so some have to be dressed as female characters. Also, the single "Thriller" from pop legend Micheal Jackson, is more of a horror music video then thriller. Thriller usually isn't as graphic as this video is as it includes zombies and scary sound effects etc and so this is a way in which Micheal Jackson "played" with the visuals and relations of his video.


Star Image
It is always very important for a music video to make a good impression to the viewers of the artist/band who is singing and performing. Whether its a performance of narrative video, it should always include plenty of close ups of the artist/band and so that the image projected to the viewers watching is positive. According to Andrew, at least 50 close up shots should be included per minute of the song.


Voyerism

This is the technique used within music videos which had a "screen within screen basis". This is shown in within many music videos such as candy shop - 50 cent. In this video, the girl in which 50 cent wants to "be with" she appears in photos along the corridor and they start to "come alive". In Jay-Z's most recent video "99 problems", before walking underneath a subway to catch a train, he is shown singing within an advertisement poster singing, this too is a symbol of voyerism.

Voyersim has been around for a while but it all began back in the 1940's with the famous soul singer Nat King Cole. The act that in his music video he is sitting in a cafe singing, you then see him watching himself, on a video screen, This was fascinating back in the 1940's as it was a "moving image within another". Since then it has been popular ever since.

Intertexuality

Intertexuality is the shaping of texts meanings by other texts, so in terms of a music video, when an artist is borrowing something from a film or TV programme they have seen and make the "theme" of it their own. It is used very cleverly in videos so that the public who watch them would have already seen something similar before and will therefore grow to like it straightaway.

J-Lo and Geri halliwell both used this concept in one of their videos. They took the opening scene from the popular dance film "Flash dance" where they walk in by them self which what appears to be some kind of dance audition and putting the needle on the record to play their song. Geri however takes a more comical approach and falls over during her dance and says "can I start again?" and then it to her music video of "It's raining men".

Robbie Williams hit single "millennium" in 2000, had intertexuality in relating to the theme of James bond. The casino champagne, white suit etc. James Bond is a film loved by many people of all different ages and Robbie thought this would attract a variety of different people to watch his music video.

Similarly to this, Madonna has also used it in her video Vogue by using the concept of "diamonds are a girls best friend" by Marilyn Munroe.




User Generated Content
This is when things that already exist in a music video are changed into something else. There are lots of examples of this on the Internet, but here are the most popular:

This is a remixed video of Jay-Z 99 problems with a famous Beatles song. The way they have used voyersim in the video makes it look like this is the actual original video created.



This is a send up of Micheal Jacksons video thriller, but is by a group of Asian prisoners

Artists of today

Today, 25 years on, MTV has become one of the most popular music videos across the world with over 4 million viewers a week. It was so popular, it now had 3 sister channels, MTV Base, MTV hits and MTV dance. This is better because now the music videos can be categorised and watched separately. They plays such a wide variety of artists, it has proved very popular all over the world.

Jay-Z
One of the artist they play are black African rapper/hip hop artist, Jay-z. He has had many hits from 2000, when he had his first breakthrough, and his latest single "99 problems" has just been released. The video is so effective, I really like it. It's only been released for a couple pf months and already has over 3 million hits on YouTube and is proving to be a great success. I really like this video because it's all filmed in black and white and slips away from the stereotypical "rap" video. It deals with issues such as violence, drugs, racism etc and is shown very well through the camera angle and mise en scene in this video. Jay-Z is with the record label "Rock" and he produced and directed this video and to this labels joy, it has been a huge success. This was one of the most expensive music videos Jay-Z has ever done costing a lot of money and including over 350 cast members.




50 Cent
50 cent is another example of an American rap/r'n'b artist and is very popular with many of today's music channels and radio stations. He has had many number ones including albums and single both in his home country America and here in the UK. Amongst all of his singles, one that caused much controversy was the song "Candy Shop". It was spoken to be "one of the most expensive and extravagant black music videos of the decade". It was a video which had classic conventions of drama in which a music video needs to draw attention to the public. This "drama" included his big mansion, his sports car, sexuality from the girls and then of course the whole "it was all just a dream" concept at the end. Although it is looked down upon by some people, it still has over 24.5 million YouTube hits.

1980's

Big hair, bright jewellery and wedged platforms where all in fashion in the 1980's. However, in 1981, the launch of MTV was shown to the world. This meant that music promos first started showing on TV. The First music video ever shown on MTV was the Buggles' 80's hit single "Video killed the radio star". MTV specifically chose this as the title of the song reflected the launch of the music channel very well. It may not have been one of the best videos, but it definitely launched the channel with a great start.



The 1980's was an era in which many artists first started. For example, Madonna and Micheal Jackson were both very popular with their music video promos on MTV. Madonna worked with many different music directors throughout the 1980's to fit many of her different music videos she produced. One of the most memorable and watched was "open your heart" released in 1982. This video really started her career in the music industry.



Micheal Jackson was a very popular artist on MTV. The fact that he was the first ever black artist to be played, he has supposed to of "made history" within the music video industry. He had many famous singles, but his biggest and most memorable breakthrough was the hit single "thriller".

The 1970's

Not only were the 1970's famous for flared trousers and flowery shirts but it was the decade in which one of the most memorable early music videos was created. Queen. A legendary band which had many number ones, not forgetting one of their most famous, Bohemian rhapsody.This music video was almost a "kick start" in the music video industry and was a huge influence for other bands and artists in this era. It used visuals that went along with the track which appealed to the Queen fans and was a huge success. Even today it had over 12 million YouTube hits and is still known as "one of the greatest music videos of our time, even 35 years on.

The 1960's

The 1960's was a great era of both music and and music videos. The Beatles were a very popular band in this decade and were famous for their weird and wonderful videos that they had produced.








This video for their number one single, "Cant buy me love" is a simple video of the four of them running around in "private property" doing different shots. Such as helicopter high angle shots and simple handheld ones.



Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and The Who were also too different band that were popular across this era and they also did similar things with their music videos.







Bob Dylan was also a very famous solo artist in the 1960's. he too, was famous for his quirky videos. In a certain video, It is simply him standing behind The Garrick Theatre, looking directly at the America just holding signs with some of the lyrics written on them. This confused people, but proved a great success.

With all these artists mentioned, it was great because if they couldn't make a TV appearance on for example, Top of The Pops, then the TV programme would simply play their music video instead.

History of Music Videos

It all began in the 1940's which was known as "the Soundies" era. "Video Jukeboxes" were a common thing found in many diners/bars and were a promo video for the song. So, people would put there money in and select a song and the video would play along with it.

Nat "king" Cole



This music video is mostly performance as it shows Nat himself watching himself on the video jukebox. These video jukeboxes died out as it was seen as inappropriate and too expensive. However, in the 1960's France created a similar thing, but better then the original. It was known as the "Scopitore". This was popular all across the world and antique ones can still be bought today.

From MTV to You Tube

What is a music video?
It's something that lasts the length of the song or sometimes seen longer and features the artist singing along and sometimes playing an instrument to the song, but the artist isn't always shown. It can tell a story, but doesn't have to and it should always be memorable to the viewer and should be worth "repeat viewings" so that once watched it can be looked at again.

1930's experimentation
Where did it all begin? There was a 1930's experiment called "A Colour Box by Len Lye".



This experiment was very much about putting film to music, which was where the whole concept of a music video began. It included trying to fit the images in time to a specific beat or rhythm or tune. This was also shown as an advert for The Post Office throughout the 1930's and was usually shown in cinemas.

The Go Team



This was one of the first music videos made. It doesn't have a narrative and instead is just lots of random images such as scenes of New York and even a group of professional "skippers". It also include lots of found advertising brands and different landscapes and locations. It was a success and was what "kick started" the music video era.

Richmix Studios - Media Trip

On Tuesday 9th November myself and my media class visited Rich mix Studios in shore ditch, Bethnal Green, East London. The trip was for us as a class to gain a better understanding of the A2 media course and to learn how to create a successful Music Video.

The Schedule for the day was split up into two sessions, morning and afternoon. The morning session included a welcome by Thalia Cassimatis, the Rich mix Education officer. This was then shortly followed by a presentation and clips from Pete Fraser, the head of the media department for the OCR examination board. His presentation included the history of music codes and conventions and top tips for making our own pop promos.

In the Afternoon session was a presentation and clips with Lis Kessler, who has been working in the industry and commissioning and producing usic videos. After that, was a question and answer session with Corin Hardy, who too has worked as a music video director. I will divide the next few posts in to the different topics and conversations that were covered and talk about what I learnt from them.