MS: Technical Analysis

Green Day released a song in 2001 called "Macy's Day Parade" off their 1999 hit album, "Warning". The music video is interesting in it's use of filming, as well as colour and tonality.

The entire video is shot in black and white by a run down industrial building, and an old factory. However the most interesting and individual part of the whole music video is that the whole video was shot continiously, with no cuts, or any other form of editing. This was achieved by having a camera man using a handicam and walking ahead of the lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong, through the entirety of the video. The video features Billie Joe singing the song, with a small 20 second section whereby he picks up an acoustic guitar and plays with the band, however the video features no related footage or content that links with the lyrics making the video very disjunctive.

Another note to consider is the fact that the handi-can performs a range of techniques altogether, including such shots as close-ups, panning shots, high and low angles and a few mid shots. Most of the video is shot as a following pan, however it is Billie Joe that is following the camera as opposed to the vice-versa technique of a camera following behind the subject.

Shot Number	Camera Technique	Duration	Purpose/Effect
1.	Zoom In	0:00 – 0:19	To view the subject (Billie Joe) getting out of the car.
2.	Pan Right & Zoom Out	0:23 – 0:40	This is to establish the scene. To set the viewer up for the rest of the video.
3.	Pans Left and Crabs Right	0:49 – 1:00	This changes the perception of the main character and changes the view of him walking from Right to Left.
4.	Following Pan Left, then Backwards	1:02 – 1:22	This helps the subject to become the centre of the camera’s view.
5.	Mid-Shot	1:23 – 1:27	To show the size of the subject.
6.	Low Angle	1:39 – 1:46	Allows the viewer to watch him go downstairs.
7.	Long Shot	2:14 – 2:29	To Emphasise Billie Joe walking over water and picking up a guitar.
8.	Zoom ins, and outs	2:31 – 2:45	The camera comes off Billie Joe to show the other band members playing.
9.	Extreme Long-Shot	2:49 – 2:56	Shows a transition between Performance and Individual parts of the video.
10.	High Angle	3:00 – 3:16	Walking up stairs.
11.	Long Shot	3:22 – 3:25	To show that Billie Joe is thinking about where to go next.
12.	Long à Extreme Long Shot / Following Pan	3:26 – 3:43	This concludes the video as Billie Joe walking towards the camera, then is left out of the shot, to be driven away by a car.

MS: Are Music Videos Art, Commercials or Porn?

• Music Videos are the most common way for bands to advertise their music. It gives bands and artists their own individuality , that separates them from others. These videos can have multiple ways of capturing an audience; for example: they could have a performance based video which demonstrates their playing ability. They could also have a storyline, including sequels and spin-off's, this makes videos more enjoyable to  watch rather than a band clubbing or partying. Some music videos can ignore all the conventions and can create an individual piece of art. Most modern music, particularly in the rap, and pop genres tend to contain many semi-naked women and therefore have moved into a soft porn view on selling music.

• Theodore Adorno disbelieved in these music video techniques. Born in Germany in 1903, he was brought up and educated with classical music alongside his studies, before moving to Frankfurt School of Critical Thinking for his teenage years. He became a sociologist, philosopher and a musicologist. Over time he grew to criticize and, or review music as well as art and other forms of media. He had a strongly critical view towards pop music and how by the late 50's it became a lot more suggestive and far less musical. Classical music was perceived as being artistic and modern pop; e.g. The Beatles, were portrayed as being commercial or advertisement. In my opinion Adorno had a strong point when he claimed that classical music was more artistic, however that is not to say that "The Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles isn't artistic. For example "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" below, from the film titled "The Yellow Submarine" released before Adorno's death, in 1967.

• Modern interpretations of music and music videos have developed to a stage whereby Porn, Art and Commercial Advertisement have integrated and are almost always used simultaneously. Such videos as "T.G.I.F" by Katy Perry include many advertisment references such as Facebook, Youtube, Coca Cola and even her previous singles playing in the background. The song also contains a storyline and multiple scenes with attractive women dancing which partially abuses the traditional ideology of Music Videos.

• In most modern day music videos women are portrayed as being objects for a male voyeuristic approach. In most music videos of the R'n'B and Rap genre, women are semi dressed and sometimes barely dressed at all! They act subservient to men, reverting back to the residual ideology of male dominance.

MS: Music Video Analysis

Institution and Audience

“Feeling This” by Blink-182 is the opening track and first single from their self-titled album released in November 2003. The song fits in with the kid-punk, and pop rock genres, with catchy lyrics, and interesting tempo changes. The song was a hit and helped the band to a more global success, having been played on the radio prior to commercial release. MTV aired the Music Video a week before the album’s release.

The music video features the band performing in a tennis court sized enclosure outside at mid-day, with men and women having a mosh pit to the song; singing the lyrics too. It is set in a prison where students of what seems to be a posh school, are being forced to be segregated and to be unexposed to the opposite gender. Between scenes of performance there are scenes of a man and woman changing out of clothes in a locker room. Gradually scene by scene the couple remove more and more clothes and attempt to kiss each other however there is glass separating them. The music video is very sexually orientated; with lots of women in slow motion having pillow fights, and numerous men taking their tops off, however it features no nude scenes.

The lyrics play a key part as there are illustrative descriptions as to how the singers want the woman to act. For example, by saying “Show me the bedroom floor”, “Let me take off your clothes” and “Show me the way you move”. It is based on one of the singer’s experiences in college and how he never did what was described in the music videos until he became more famous.

To promote the song and band further, new merchandise was released with the bands new logo, a smiley face with "x"'s for eyes and 5 arrows on the left hand side. (Image below). It became a recognisable emblem to the band of which they previously did not have. After the bands 5 year hiatus they returned and updated the logo by adding another arrow, however the principle is the same.



Jerry Finn produced the video as well as mixing the album; he had been hired due to previous successful work with Morrissey, Green Day and The Offspring and became good friends with the band. He co-produced, mixed and filmed the band up from 1997, until his death in 2008.

This is the Music Video link to "Feeling This" by Blink 182.

LB: Music Video Analysis: Bloc Party: Octopus (Dando, 2012): Genre & Representation

Genre:

• Looking at Goodwin’s model, it is clear that the music video for Octopus is conventional towards the indie genre. To begin with, commonly, the video will be set in a simplistic location, in this case, what looks to be a derelict 1950’s house in need of refurbishment. In this set, there is a band performance, as well as a dance performance. Additionally, there is frequent ‘meat shots’ of either the lead singer, as well as the other band members, for example, the very first shot is of the drummer, followed by the lead guitarist.
• However, in my view, the link between lyrics and visuals are very contradicting, for example, the line “I don’t know why I feel like crying” has no visual link to the song where at the same point in the video, it is paralleled with a meat shot, of the lead singer with a smile on his face. Another example of this is that the dancers in the video have no significance to the song, other than by spinning around with a ribbon attached to a stick.
• Nonetheless, there is a link between the music and visuals. For instance, the rapid strumming of the guitar is inter-twined beside a set of rapidly on screen changing colours.Two points that Goodwin suggested were key features of a music video that are not present in Bloc Party’s Octopus are the notion of looking, nor is there any intertextual reference to any film, TV or music.

Representation:

• Prevalence, in the music video to Octopus, is given to the band members and more often, the lead singer, all of whom are male, however, since early releases of the songs, their videos have often be consistent with the inclusion of all members rather than focusing on just the lead singer.





'Banquet'

• In my opinion, the song does not add to their meta-narrative significantly as I compare their song Banquet released in 2005, not much has change other than small additions such as better quality cameras, and the inclusion of dancers, due to their growth in popularity over the years most likely leading to a larger funding. In further detail, one feature that is also included in both videos is the use of a colour to either separate shots and/or the beat as highlighted earlier in Octopus. The only real main difference between the two main videos being updated hair styles.

'Banquet'

• The way in which is helps sell their product, is that they are sticking to their core values which would be appreciated by their fans, and thus retaining all those valued followers, whilst still gaining recognition from both new fans as well as other professionals within the music industry.

• The only main difference in social group representation in the video is gender. The main factor in gender is that, the band are all male, and they are performing the song and are given prevalence, where as the dancers are all female, who are playing the supportive role, suggested by Goffman et al through the theory of Functional ranking, where the man performs the action, and the woman either reinforces or supports the actions.
•  In my view, this video is highly conventional to current music videos of this genre, therefore it is my view that it conforms to many dominant values currently present in our society, however, it doesn’t attempt to challenge any of these. The video for Octopus does not throw the rule book out the window; it sticks to it by the word in that it is similar to every other indie rock song video and makes no effort to push the boundaries.

LB: Music Video Analysis: Snow Patrol: Chasing Cars (UK Version, 2006): Institution & Media Language

Institution:

• In looking at the institutional context, when we look at the record label, they would have some main points to consider in the creation of promotional texts such as the genre and artist.
• To start off with, chasing cars, was a song that was create with two videos, one for the UK and one for the US, both with similar representations, but with different settings and ways of conveying the same story. The UK version shows the main singer, lying down in a rural setting on his own, where as the US version displays the lead singer lying down in an urban area with people just walking over him.  
• Another area the record label would has choice over is where and how they decide to promote the track, which would include factors like Music Channels it would be released on and radio stations. At the time of release, the song was a huge success and as a result, it could often be found playing on MTV, VH1, the Box and many more as well as the song on Radio Stations such as Capital FM or BBC Radio 1.
• Another factor that the record label would play is the allocation of funding provided to create the video; in this case, it was a strong belief clearly of Polydor and Universal to fund two identifiable videos.
• On top of this, due to the mainstream nature of the song and artist, the record label would have a large influence on such factors as costume, setting, and scene play within the video, once again, the American urban setting and the UK rural setting.

Media Language: 

• Before Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol were a relatively small band with a loyal fan base.This track catapulted Snow Patrol into the history books with Chasing Cars remain in the UK music charts for over 100 weeks. As a result, this track began to build upon a solid foundation of their band image, and develop their meta-narrative. The band image being created is one of that, Snow Patrol create meaningful songs that most audiences can relate to.

Visual techniques are important in any video. In the UK as well as US version of the track, it utilises many techniques in order to help create the star image, desired by the record label. In Chasing Cars, camera work and framing of shots use many CUs and MCUs in order to give prevalence to the lead singer.

Another camera technique implemented is the use of shallow focus throughout the video. Once again, this helps to give prevalence to the lead singer. in addition to this, there is also the use of a birds eye shot continuing to build prevalence for the lead singer.

Editing is another area where meaning can be created. The main feature in Chasing Cars is the pace of editing in which the video correlates with the speed and rhythm of the track. There is a slow cutting rate whilst many frames last for more than two seconds.

Mise-en-scene remains very limited in the video as we only see the lead singer in the same location for a large majority of the track, as well as using the same costume. Nevertheless, the location is a wide open, rural area which, in the context of this video, connotes loneliness and separation from the reality. Lighting is another factor in this video. In the beginning, the shot is well lit which connotes the idea of opportunity. However, towards the end of the track, the setting becomes very dark, thus suggesting that all that opportunity has gone, and the realisation of this has 'sunk in'. This is then combined with the the visual imagery of the lead singer plunging into the water.