RB: Auteur Research Task

Auteur Music Video Research

Madonna – Frozen (Cunningham, 1998)

• This video is shot in a gothic style using dark colours for both the costume and background to represent this, further emphasised by the make-up used. The low lighting and dark colours used in the video reflect the style of the song.

 

• Very little camera movement is used in each shot and the cutting rate is slow. This is representative of the music as the song has a slow tempo.
• A range of shots are used in the video, for example mid shots and close ups of the singer and long shots and establishing shots of the animals and landscape. Time compression is also used frequently in the establishing shots.

Fatboy Slim – Praise You (Jonze, 1998)

• This video is in a guerrilla style flash-mob shot in a handi-cam style on location. Rather than featuring actors, costumes, props and sets, it has been shot in a public place with a small number of actors and members of the public.
• It seems to have been filmed by several cameras at different angles at the same time. The location has not been professionally lit or positioned for the video which emphasises the low budget of the production.

Radiohead – Street Spirt (Glazer, 2006)

• In this video, the character is presented in a religious position, similar to ‘Rabbit In Your Headlights’ by Unkle feat. Thom Yorke, also directed by Glazer. 

• It has been shot in black and white and techniques such as time expansion has been used.
• Although the video does not have a typical performance section, the singer is shown throughout the video with other people in the background in an artistic style.
• This video could be seen as amplifying the lyrics as the narrative does have some relation to the lyrics, despite not being illustrative.

Kanye West feat. Syleena Johnson – All Falls Down (Milk, 2003)

• A POV style shot is used throughout this video meaning that the audience are positioned with Kanye West.

• This is effective in shots showing the character’s hands and shots in mirrors and window reflections.

• The use of POV style shots creates a sense of realism for the audience when positioned with the character.

• It is unusual for a POV shot to be used for an entire video as it is usually only used for individual shots, but in this video the use is emphasised as the character blinks at several points throughout the video and rubs his eyes.

Feist – Inside And Out (Ramon and Pedro, 2005)

• In this video, the performance and narrative are put together interestingly. The video is shown in black and white with the narrative showing photographs being developed.
• The performance is simply of the singer in a park performing the song with shots from the video shown in the pictures being developed as an interesting way to cut between the performance and the narrative.

• At some points in the video, a negative style effect has been added to shots, for example, shots are used of the singer in monochrome with the background in negative.

Ra Ra Riot – Boy (Levite, 2010)

The performance section of this video are made up of static long shots of the entire band or meat shots of the singer’s face and close ups of the instruments. The lighting in the performance shots also changes between lights being held in front of the band so they are easily visible to being lit from behind so they cannot be seen in detail.
• Static shots used for the performance of the video as well as the band remaining fairly still. This is similar to performances of other bands in the same genre as similar framing and angles are also used.
• The narrative section of the video shows cats as well as other things unrelated to the song.

Human – Carpark North (Thurah, 2005)

• This video is entirely narrative based made up of clips of young children. This connotes rebellion as the children are shown fighting and with tattoos throughout the video. This creates a contrast between the beginning of the video where the children are shown on their own in classrooms.
• Extra-diagetic gazes are used throughout the video, more often done by singers or members of the band than characters in the narrative. Both time compression and expansion is used as well as a varied assortment of different cutting rates used throughout the video.
• The video contains both shots of the children either individually of in groups around a school as well as individual close up shots of them in front of a black background. The black background is conventional for music videos, although again it is usually used behind a band member.

Ida Maria – I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked (Odell, 2008)

This video is mainly made up of performance footage of either the singer on her own or with her backing band. The background throughout the video is a abstract pop art style animation with the live action performance of the musicians.
•  The lyrics to the song are often shown in the background throughout the video. Similarly, individual words and phrases from the song appear in a typewriter style font which fits in with the pop art style background.
• Another visual technique used in this video is the band and singer (or other subjects of a shot) being in black and white with a coloured background. 

Regina Spektor – Samson (Sluszka, 2006)

• As well as the performance of the song, this video includes a narrative made by stop-animation, something the director, Peter Sluska, uses in many pieces of his work.
• The performance and stop-animation are often combined, as well as other post-production techniques during the performance and narrative.

• The performance section of the video is conventional of the genre of music and is mainly comprised of slow moving pans and mid and long shots of Regina Spektor and close ups of her hands playing piano. 
• Throughout the performance, she is breaking the fourth wall by looking into the camera. As well as being a conventional performance for the genre, this is also a typical performance for the artist as many other Regina Spektor videos have similar performance sections.

• The narrative in the video is made up of short clips of Regina Spektor which are then combined and replaced with an animation sequence. 
• This video follows some aspects of Goodwin’s theory of music videos, for example the slow pace of the cutting rate and movement in the animation sequences fits in with the tempo of the music to create an illustrative relationship between the music and video. 

• Similarly, the animation sequences in the narration have an amplified relationship with the lyrics, for example, the bird flying away at the line ‘I have to go.’ 
• The lyrics of the song tell a story which would typically be performed in the narrative section of the video. However, this video shows short sequences of animation, each of which is an amplified representation of the lyrics and story. 
• This could be considered unconventional as many music videos with an amplified relationship between the lyrics and narrative creates a story, even if it is not the same as the lyrics.

• The difference between the real life performance of the song and the animation mean that there are many interesting shots as it switches between the two styles. 
• For example, the first use of stop-animation in the video shows sheets of paper moving across the room and turning into a bird. This is a good example of the combination of the two styles as it shows real life with stop-animation turning into animation.

• Many theorists have often suggested that women are often presented as unimportant or subordinate to men in the media through the use of camera angles used to show the women and the actions they are doing. 
• Although Regina Spektor is a young woman, she conforms to neither Laura Mulvey nor Goffman et al’s theory of the representation of females. Laura Mulvey’s theory stated that a media text is shown to the audience through the eyes of a heterosexual male, meaning that women are often presented as sexualised objects. However, she is not presented this way in the video as she is usually shown in mid or long shots rather than having the camera ‘linger on the curves of the female body’ as Mulvey suggests. 
• Secondly, Goffman et al’s theory suggested many ways women are often portrayed which present them as inferior to men. As the singer is the only person in this video, many of their theories are not relevant. 

• However, the theory does suggest dismemberment (predominantly showing close ups of the women’s body parts) and commodification (presenting women as a product or object for male consumption). Once again this video does not conform to these theories, showing that although parts of the video are conventional for the genre, much of the content of the video is not as if does not conform to theories which are popular among similar artists.

Feeder – Feeling the Moment (Odell, 2005)

• The performance section in this video is extremely conventional and is shot in a typical location of a deserted car park. 
• Long shots of the entire band have been used to show the performance as well as mid shots of each individual member and close ups of the instruments and singer’s face. 
• The cutting rate of the performance shots is relatively quick, usually cutting on the beat of the music. 
• There is also a lot of camera movement in this section, usually quickly moving towards or away from the band. This is a conventional performance section for the genre of music, emphasised by the close ups of the guitars which creates a sense of authenticity for the band.

• Similarly to the performance, the narrative in this video is fairly simple. It shows the singer walking through a street with the space surrounding him turning white (post-production technique) as he walks along. Other people dressed entirely in black are walking in the opposite direction but seem to disappear as they approach him and re-appear as they pass. 
• This presents him as alone and different from other people and is therefore presenting an amplified relationship between the lyrics and narrative. 
• In contrast to the performance, the cutting rate of the narrative sections of the video are much slower, alternating between close up and mid shots of the singer, focusing on his face as he sings, and long shots showing the location around him and the other people on the street.

• Post-production effects have been added to the video in both the performance and narrative section. I think that the use of the effects could be seen as enforcing the symbolic and semic codes described by Barthes. For example, the effects begin as the simple white area surrounding the singer as he walks in the narrative, spacing himself out from others as other people do not come too close to him without disappearing. 
• Throughout the rest of the narrative, this changes to the area around the singer as he walks and continues to symbolise the singer’s feelings. Throughout the group performance shots in the video, white lines begin to appear throughout the shots and begin to take up more space, as well as forming patterns and shapes around the band members. This connotes that the singer’s feelings presented in the narrative are becoming stronger as they are spilling into the performance section. 
• This is further emphasised by the people shown walking past the singer in the narrative of the song are walking through the performance location.

• As the effects can be seen as summing up the singer’s feelings throughout the song, the narrative would have an amplified relationship with the lyrics. This is also reinforces the generic conventions presented throughout the video such as the location and use of camera angles in the performance.