Music Video Notes

Typical Music Video Features:



+ Bands/Artists

+ Instruments

+ Genre Specific

+ Story

+ Narrative

+ Actors/Actresses

+ Dancers/Routines

+ Special Effects

+ Performance





Music videos are initially a marketing device. They are advertising the artist to increase the fan base and also increase record sales.

Making a music video to accompany a song didn't become mainstream until around 1980. With the first recognised video coming from The Beatles in the form of 'Hard Days Night'. The Beatles had created film inserts around 1965 prior to making the first music video using songs such as 'Penny Lane' and 'Strawberry Fields are Forever', they were both directed by Peter Goldman and were described as fancy and used slow motion along with unusual camerawork.

Music videos became even more popular when 'MTV' was launched in 1981 with 'Video Killed the Radio Star' being played as one of the first music videos. After this music videos became a standard thing, they were cheap to produce and became more high tech by using Chrome Key.



Censorship



Music Videos that were labelled indecent were censored by the British Board of Film Classification. In 1991 Micheal Jackson's' 'Black or White' was censored due to complaints from viewers who said that he indecently touched himself. Other videos that have been censored include Robbie Williams' 'Rock DJ' and The Prodigy's' 'Smack My Bitch Up'.



Music Theory



Some would argue that music videos have made Pop superficially based on image.

Are Pop songs enough on there own to make a meaning and pleasure to the Audience?

"A good music video is a clip that responds to the pleasure of music, in which that music is made visual, in either new ways or in a way that accentuates existing video associations" - Andrew Goodwin, 1992.



Andrew Goodwin's Theory



1 Music videos demonstrate genre, characteristics such as dance routines usually shown

in boy/girl music videos.

2 The relationship between lyrics and visuals either contradict or illustrate the lyrics.

3 The relationship between music and visuals will either illustrate, amplify or contradict what is

happening on screen.

4 The demand of the record labels will include lots of close ups of the artist(s) will develop motifs

which will re-occur across the style of the music videos.

5 Frequent references to the notion of looking voyeurism of the female body.

6 Intertextual reference

The basic function of a music video is to promote and advertise the song and artist. Which will result in the increase of record sales as well as gaining new fans. The first recognised music video was created by the Beatles in 1965 - it was known as 'film inserts' and was directed by Peter Goldman. 'Penny Lane' and 'Strawberry Fields are Forever' were described as fancy due to the experimental camerawork. Music videos are commissioned by the video department at record companies. Somebody will have been assigned the job of commissioning videos for new singles. Andrew Goodwins theory states that there are three different ways in which a video can relate to song lyrics, these are:

+ Illustrate

+ Amplify

+ Contradict.

A video treatment is decided at the start of the process. The record company get together with the artist the define a desired treatment. A treatment could also be described as a concept and outlines what the music video will be about e.g. whether the artist will be performing or whether the video will be based more around showing a story.

When making a student video the main principle to stick with would be to keep the concept simple, if you keep it simple but put in a lot of camera shots and editing techniques it will be good. The story isn't the most important bit.