Music Video Analysis 101

Name Of Song- Shampain

Artist- Marina & the Diamonds

GENRE CHARACTERISTICS

       The observations for the genre characteristics of 'Shampain,' it being an alternative/indie genre, is the location, the tune of the song, the cinematography style and the costume. The evidence for the location is obvious with the video, as the setting isn't a large place; a play park for most of the video. We see Marina doing a thriller-style dance through a littered park with two backup dancers. The evidence for the tune of the song is that, even though the video was released in 2010, it has a very retro vibe and sound to it, which isn't exactly a widely used style in mainstream song culture. The evidence for the cinematography is that the look and feel of the video, with help from the camera angles and shots, is a sort of glamorous cheesy indie retro feel through shots such as a close-up of Marina's face with heavy make up, only used to contrast with the smeared make up on her face later on, which is shown with surrounding smoke effects and backup dancers moving like the zombies in Michael Jackson's Thriller, generating the glamorous, cheesy retro feel. The evidence for the costume is obvious as the only costumes worn are binary opposites; a beautiful dress and then a ripped up dress. This implies the possibly small budget as different costumes aren't worn every 5 seconds, unlike mainstream pop music videos.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LYRICS AND VISUALS?

         There seems to be connection with these factors, as there is in almost every indie/alternative music video. Here, the lyrics 'drinking champagne, to forget yesterday, 'cause I remember, the way the way the way, I ended the day...' is quite easily connected with the visuals, such as Marina wearing a nice dress and shown in a golden-coloured tone, then wearing a torn dress, as though she's remembering something bad she may have done and tries to 'forget yesterday.'

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MUSIC AND VISUALS?

          There is only little relationship between music and visuals, as indie probably pays more attention to lyrical meaning and visual representation. However, the rhythm of the music, it being in a retro style, is synchronized at times with the backup dancers and Marina herself as they do their own rendition of the Thriller (as I've said before, so forgive me).

ARE THERE CLOSE-UPS OF THE ARTIST AND STAR IMAGE MOTIFS?

          There are quite a few close-ups of Marina used between the switch overs of her costume and make up. This doesn't create a star image motif, as her dressing isn't similar in other videos, and there isn't really any justifiable motif to do with her style in other videos and singles.

IS THERE REFERENCE TO THE NOTION OF LOOKING?

ARE THERE INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCES?

             There are two intertextual references, one lyrical and one visual. The lyrical intertextual reference is when the line 'made by the angel, who goes by the name, of glittering Gabriel' references the angel Gabriel from the Holy Bible, as well as the word 'celestial' being sung at times. The visual intertextual reference is that of (you guessed it) Thriller by Michael Jackson, with the dance moves closely resembling the moves in the 1981 music video.

IS THE VIDEO CATEGORY ILLUSTRATION, DISJUNCTURE OR AMPLIFICATION? HOW MUCH?

               The video is 40% disjuncture, 50% amplification and 10% illustration. It is disjuncture as there are a lot of times where Marina is just shown stumbling zombie-like through a park, which doesn't really connect with the lyrics. However it's also amplification because the stumbling through the park and the zombie-like women seem to reflect that something has gone wrong due to a 'bad night,' which is why Marina is shown well dressed and then dishevelled. The small section that is illustration is just where Marina gets up and walks away from a set of stairs during the lyrics 'the day the day the day that I walked away, away away away.'

THE VIDEO- http://youtu.be/-vHi83LTQjU

    

 

     

 

The Slideshare Powerpoint

Our 'Big Fat' Music Video Research Presentation

I have constructed a short powerpoint (ironic considering the title) based around the section that i am researching for our rendition on the music video 'Human' by The Killers. I'm researching the lyrics to the song, so that i can analyse them and attempt to put them into our own version of the video (for the same song) and try to visually interpret them in as much of a different way compared to the original video. Here are the screenshots of my powerpoint:

The Killers- Human: The Final Music Video, The Planning Stage

It seems, these days, that I'm beginning planning on a tonne of different music videos. This is a plan for our newly appointed music video; 2009's 'Human' by The Killers, the four man band fronted by Brandon Flowers. Beginning our planning today, me, Kayleigh and Jack have chosen different areas of research for the video to be able to piece together later on and create our own vision of the song.
          I chose the lyrical side of the research. Even though this sounds easy enough, I need to be able to annotate the lyric sheet, pick out certain words and find as many allegoric/symbolic references as 'human'ly possible (see what I did there)?
         From first look of the lyrics, they seem to be referencing life, love, suicide and 'opening doors.'
From the perspective of another, the line "are we human, or we dancer" is "his way of asking would you rather be human and live and live everyday doing the same thing, or being a dancer and feeling the music and doing a dance that isn't a regular routine."As I carry on with this research, I'll update my blog to show you the latest news on the research and eventually merge all of the research from each group member together and create a presentation containing this information, using any possible website that creates presentations.

So here are the lyrics that I am annotating:

THE KILLERS LYRICS

I did my best to notice
When the call came down the line
Up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind

And sometimes I get nervous
When I see an open door
Close your eyes, clear your heart
Cut the cord

Are we human or are we dancer?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold
And I'm on my knees looking for the answer
Are we human or are we dancer?

Pay my respects to grace and virtue
Send my condolences to good
Hear my regards to soul and romance
They always did the best they could

And so long to devotion
You taught me everything I know
Wave goodbye, wish me well
You've gotta let me go

Are we human or are we dancer?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold
And I'm on my knees looking for the answer
Are we human or are we dancer?

Will your system be alright
When you dream of home tonight
There is no message we're receiving
Let me know, is your heart still beating?

Are we human or are we dancer?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold
And I'm on my knees looking for the answer

You've gotta let me know

Are we human or are we dancer?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold
And I'm on my knees looking for the answer
Are we human or are we dancer?

Are we human or are we dancer?
Are we human or are we dancer?

Taken from http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/human.html  

Group Music Video: Fluorescent Adolescent- The Storyboard Years Part 2

We have now finished our storyboard order for the music video 'Fluorescent Adolescent' by The Artic Monkeys. To be able to know what order to place these images in for the video, we scanned over the lyrics multiple times to find which ones match with what the words are suggesting. After about half an hour of moving the images round to match with the lyrics (which was helpful because most of the pictures we drew were literal to the words in the song, such as when Tabasco is mentioned, Tabasco is shown), we finally finished piecing them together.

Now that we have finally finished piecing together our music video, we used the pictures we took of the full storyboard and placed them on iMovie, where we edited it into place. We downloaded the song to be put onto iTunes then drag it over to iMovie where we had to intricately synchronise the songs lyrics with the storyboard images that perceived them. After listening for the first time to the music and the pictures, we were given an idea of where to move the images to synchronise with the lyrics. Two or three lessons later, after moving and adding a few images, we played the song for the final time along with the slideshow of images, and eventually it fit.

Now that we are happy with our finished product, you can view it here at:

http://www.kayleighmusicvideoblogg324.blogspot.co.uk

Enjoy :-)

Planning the Music Video: Blog 1

Here I will show and tell what I have done for the first stage of my music video plan. The music video I am planning for here is the 'Them Heavy People' by Kate Bush, not 'Fluorescent Adolescent' by The Artic Monkeys. I have completed a storyboard for my chosen video (which could hopefully be made) with elements of allegory; characters; settings (mise-én-scene) and location that I have drawn through just over 4 pages of 3X4 storyboard frames to be able to feature the typical three-part 'narrative' of a typical music video. NOTE: This is a post that was made for another intended video, not 'Human' by The Killers.

 

Analysis of the Storyboard

 

       The two main locations that I have chosen for this video are the forest (or just a wooded area) and the room of a house (I drew a kitchen because of the osition of the furniture to be able to pull off one certain scene involving a mirror. The completely different locations are because the forest resembles the actress's state of mind and the world inside her own imagination. The kitchen/house is used to juxtapose with the imagination as the house is intended to be filmed in a more darker tone to correctly oppose the brightness of the imagination and the darkness of reality. The actress is pulled out of her imagination and back into her house (reality). Of course, this would require some quite complicated editing as I intend to throw her back to reality via two shady suited men who drag her through the forest and slumped onto a chair, which is randomly placed so that it resembles her view o returning to reality through a chair. It reflects her state of mind along with the lyrics of the song. As the video plays on, the 'story' becomes clear that the actress is being driven more insane by the real world, which is told with accompanying cross-cuts to a slinky being pulled taut and snapping; the slinky being her mind. Despite the dark undertone of the storyboard, the lyrics do imply these tones on occasion, so the inclusion of a third cross-cut setting is used to show the actual instruments in the song being played and the song being sung by the actress. This is a typical feature in most music videos; where the camera cuts to the band/artist performing the song, as though 'breaking the fourth wall.'

 

 

        

 

 

Group Music Video: Fluorescent Adolescent- The Storyboard Years Part 1

For the last couple of weeks, we have been working on creating a music video for a song that we were given: 'Fluorescent Adolescent' by The Artic Monkeys. Through these couple of weeks, we got into a group of four; drawing our own sections of the storyboard by basing it off the lyrics from the song. We then began cutting up the storyboard frames and interweaved them with each other to form the three main scenes of the music video; creating a story as the background for the video. The three main scenes were: The band shown to be playing the instruments and singing; the story shown through an almost literal style; and cross-cuts that show a woman with a paper mask on that changes emotion every time the camera cuts to her, with certain items being used to symbolise the fall of her adolescence (which is literally shown as a scene shows cut up letters that create the word 'Adolescent' fall before the woman wearing the mask. I created the scenes for the latter description: the masked woman, mostly because I had no idea how to interpret the lyrics until i was given a hint that she was growing up. Here is the storyboard section that I created: