Intertextuality

This notion was created by Julia Kristeva. Intertextuality is recognising the connections between stories and how they deepen our appreciation and experience. It refers to the way in which a text is shaped by other texts. Every text (film, music, image etc) is a mosaic of references to other texts. Some texts refer directly to each other for example, in remakes of films. Here are a few examples of intertextuality in music video's:

Theories

Stuart Hall - Preferred reading

Hall is a theorist who argues that although the media appears to reflect real life, it actually constructs it. He devised his theory of preferred reading after becoming interested in politics and studying the work of Karl Marx.

He was interested in the power of the media and how the mass media create and define issues that are of public concern through audience positioning.

He stated that people read in one of these three ways:

• Dominant (hegemonic) reading - the reader percieves into the text/media product in a positive way and accept the message being put accross in a somewhat natural way.
• Negotiated reading - the reader generally accepts the preferred reading but sometimes modifies it to reflect their own life e.g. interests and experiences.
• Oppositional reading - The reader rejects the reading and percieves it in a negative way. Their social situation could place them in an oppositional position to the dominant ideas being portrayed.

 Hall himself challenged the three components of the mass communications model and argued that a meaning is not always determined by the sender, that the message is never transparent, and finally, that the audience is not a passive recipient of meaning. For example, if a documentory about child slave workers was to be created, although it may seem as though the documentory was created to make the audience feel sympathy towards the children, some people may not feel this way therefore the documentory must be created in a way that creates a range of responses and feelings towards the show.

Andrew Goodwin

Goodwin states there are 5 key aspects of a music video that an audience look out for.

•  Synaesthesia - Seeing the sound in your head e.g. the beat, the structure of the song, the mode of address (telling a story? addressing a lover?) and the artists voice

•  Narrative and performance - the way the music video has been constructed, how the story is being told, use of advertising, how realistic it is

• Star image - how the artist/group has been represented throughout the music video

• Relation of visuals to the song - how the lyrics correlate with the lyrics and how the audience can relate to it or make sense of it, use of camera work, movement, angle, mise- en -scene editing, sound and special effects etc.

• Technical aspects of the music video - for example, the special effects or editing that has been used

This is all depending on the aim of the record company as well as the genre of the song, but Goodwin states that music videos are mainly constructed by linking the lyrics with the visuals and showing the artist. He then goes on to say that the relationship between these things are also used in unison with close ups of the artist which respresents them in the way that they wish to be portrayed as this is publicity for them. Voyeurism is used to make the artist and music video more attractive, especially to men and this is often found in hip hop videos.

Levi Strauss

Claude Levi-Strauss, a French anthropologist said that we interpret the meaning of words depending on the opposite word, or as he called it binary opposites. He explores these as underlying typical themes rather than events. He, along with another major theorist Roland Barthes, stated that words are simply symbols of societys ideas, therefore they are more about the relationship between words rather than concrete ideas.

Barthes and Levi-Strauss noticed another important feature of these 'binary opposites': that one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as more valued over the other.This theory helps us to understand how ideas and meanings can be shaped, created or reinforced in a text or music video for example.

Some examples of Binary opposites are:

Christian vs. Pagan
Weak vs. Strong
Garden vs. Wilderness
Wilderness vs. Outside Society
Civilised vs. Barbaric
Masculine vs. Feminine

Laura Mulvey

'The Gaze' deals with how an audience views the people being represented. For feminists it can be thought of in 3 ways:  how men look at women,  how women look at themselves, and how women look at other women.  

Mulvey is a best described as a feminist who coined the term ‘Male Gaze’ in 1975. She believes audiences view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

One feature of the Male Gaze is when the camera focuses on the curves of a woman, and the narrative of films/music videos often show a positive reaction from males when this happens. This represents women as something to be looked at and be seen as an object to fulfil a mans basic desire to find attractive women to look at.

In addition to this, Mulvey argues that sexism can also occur in the way the text is presented and that the audience are encouraged to gaze at women. For example, in advertising, women are represented in a way that sexualizes a woman's body even when the woman's body not related to the product being advertised.

Some theorists criticise Mulvey's male gaze theory and argue that some women actually enjoy being looked at in situations such as beauty pageants. Not everything is sexualised, and the gaze may be directed towards women so that they compare themselves to them in body shape or dress sense.

Hypodermic needle

Dating from the 1920s, this theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media. suggests that audiences passively receive the information transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data.
Basically, the Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information from a text passes into the mass consciouness of the audience unmediated, ie the experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. This theory suggests that, as an audience, we are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by media-makers. It assumes that the audience are passive and heterogenous. This theory is still quoted during moral panics by parents, politicians and pressure groups, and is used to explain why certain groups in society should not be exposed to certain media texts (comics in the 1950s, rap music in the 2000s), for fear that they will watch or read sexual or violent behaviour and will then act them out themselves.



Uses & Gratifications

During the 1960s, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when consuming texts. Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways. In 1948 Lasswell suggested that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society:

• surveillance
• correlation
• entertainment
• cultural transmission

Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (ie uses and gratifications):

• Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
• Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life
• Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts
• Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains

Since then, the list of Uses and Gratifications has been extended, particularly as new media forms have come along (eg video games, the internet)

 

Beyonce - Dance For You (Performance Based Music Video)

A performance based music video which I found quite interesting is Beyonce - Dance For You and so I am going to analyse this.

Lyrics:

I just wanna... 

Show you how much I appreciate you

Wanna show you how much I'm dedicated to you

Wanna show you how much I will forever be true

Wanna show you how much you got your girl feelin' good

Wanna show you how much, how much you're understood

Wanna show you how much, I value what you say

Not only are you loyal, you're patient with me bay

Wanna show you how much, I really care about yo heart

I wanna show ya how much, I hate being apart

Show ya, show ya, show ya til you're through with me

I wanna keep it how it is, so you can never say how it used to be

(Bridge)

Loving you is really all that's on my mind

And I can't help but to think about it day and night

I wanna make that body rock, sit back and watch

(Chorus)

Tonight I'm gonna dance for you (ohh ooh ohh ohhh)

Tonight I'm gonna dance for you (ohh ooh ohh ohhh)

Tonight I'm gonna put my body on your body

Boy I like it when you watch me, ah

Tonight it's going down

I'll be rockin' on my babe rockin', rockin' on my babe

Swirlin' my babe Twirlin', swirlin' on my babe

Baby lemme put my body on your body 

Promise not to tell nobody cuz

It's bout to go down

You'll never need 2, cuz I will be your number 1

Them other chicks are superficial 

But I know you know I'm the one

That's why I'm all into you

Cuz I can recognize that you know that

That's why I'm backin' this thing back

Pop, poppin' this thing back

Drop-drop-drop-dropping this thing back

This is for the time, you gave me flowers

For the world, that is ours

For the mulah, for the power of love

I know I won't never ever eh-ever give you up

And I wanna say thank you in case I don't thank you enough

A woman in the street and the freak in the you know what

Sit back sit back it's the pre game show

Daddy you know what's up

(Bridge)

Loving you is really all that's on my mind

And I can't help but to think about it day and night

I wanna make that body rock, sit back and watch

(Chorus)

Tonight I'm gonna dance for you (ohh ooh ohh ohhh)

Tonight I'm gonna dance for you (ohh ooh ohh ohhh)

Tonight I'm gonna put my body on your body

Boy I like it when you watch me, ah

Tonight it's going down

I'll be rockin' on my babe rockin', rockin' on my babe

Swirlin' my babe swirlin', swirlin' on you babe

Baby lemme put my body on your body 

Promise not to tell nobody cuz

It's bout to go down

Imma take this time

To show you how much you mean to me

Cuz you all I need

No money can emphasize or describe 

The love that's in between the lines

Boy look into my eyes

While I'm grinding on you

This is beyond sex

I'm high on you

If it's real then you know how I feel

Rockin on you babe

Rockin rockin on you babe

Swirlin on you babe

In my mind all I can think about 

Is a frame for our futures

And the pictures of the past

And a chance to make this love last

(Chorus)

Tonight I'm gonna dance for you (ohh ooh ohh ohhh)

Tonight I'm gonna dance for you (ohh ooh ohh ohhh)

Tonight I'm gonna put my body on your body

Boy I like it when you watch me, ah

Tonight it's going down

I'll be rockin' on my babe rockin', rockin' on my babe

I be swirlin' my babe swirlin', swirlin' on you babe

Baby lemme put my body on your body 

Promise not to tell nobody cuz

It's bout to go down

Watch me pop it, pop it, pop-pop-pop-pop it for you baby 

Drop it, drop it, drop it, drop it for you baby 

Watch it, watch it, watch it, watch me throw it baby 

Wanna make that body rock, sit back and watch

Watch me pop it, pop it, pop-pop-pop-pop it for you baby 

Drop it, drop it, drop it, drop it for you baby 

Watch it, watch it, watch it, watch me throw it baby 

Wanna make that body rock, sit back and watch

Camera shots and angles:

The video starts off completely black and then abruptly moves onto this image.

 

This shot automatically creates a mysterious atmosphere for the music video as a random man who has a mysterious look himself, is standing right in front of the camera with a shadow quite far in the background. This is a close up of the man, with all focus on him as everything else is blurred out. 

The above three shots are what the camera focuses on next. As you can see on the first one, there is still a shadow with a light behind it. On the second screenshot, the shadow comes closer to the camera and you can start to see a face and then on the third screenshot, the artist is finally revealed. They have done this because they want to gradually show the artist to the audience in order to keep the music video starting off as mysterious. The artist has her hair done and her make up done too which makes her look very presentable which is a good promotion technique as the audience like to see a good looking artist.

Throughout the rest of the music video, there are mainly close ups on the artist's body to appeal to the audience and attract them. There are also a few long shots like the screenshot above, in order to show the setting as well a whole view of the artist's body. Here are a few shots showing this:

 

Laura Mulvey

Here is some information I found on Wikipedia:

Laura Mulvey (born August 15, 1941) is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She worked at the British Film Institute for many years before taking up her current position. Mulvey is best known for her essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", written in 1973 and published in 1975 in the influential British film theory journal Screen. It later appeared in a collection of her essays entitled Visual and Other Pleasures, as well as in numerous other anthologies. Her article is one of the first major essays that helped shift the orientation of film theory towards a psychoanalytic framework, influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Prior to Mulvey, film theorists such as Jean-Louis Baudry and Christian Metz used psychoanalytic ideas in their theoretical accounts of the cinema, but Mulvey's contribution was to inaugurate the intersection of film theory, psychoanalysis and feminism.

Laura Mulvey introduced a theory called 'The Male Gaze' in 1975 which focuses on how the audience view the people presented infront of them. She believes that audiences have to see the characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. For feminists, it can be viewed in three different ways. These are:

• How men look at women
• How women look at themselves
• How women look at other women

Beyonce's video definitely represents the Male Gaze theory as the whole video focuses on the artist and her body. Many females look upto Beyonce as she is a successful woman who is seen as beautiful with a nice figure. Males also like the look of Beyonce. Due to this, Beyonce decides to show this off in her videos in order to get the audience's attention. By doing this, she is promoting herself. She does this by wearing figure-hugging clothes, having her hair and make up done nicely and dancing in a seductive way.

Enrique - Hero (Narrative Based Music Video)

The song 'Hero' was released in 2001 and was a big hit, with its catchy lyrics and star studded cast. The music video presents Enrique, the artist, as a 'hero' to the lead female, Jennifer Love Hewwit. This straight away contributes to the success of the music video and the mise-en-scene as the lead female is a well known hollywood actress. Their on-screen romance and the way the narrative music video has been constructed has been created to resemble a film with its cinematic effect. The director Joseph Kahn has created a music video which has been created in a modern era but includes many elements of a classic love story where a woman needs 'saving'.


Lyrics:

Let me be your hero.

Would you dance
if I asked you to dance?

Would you run

and never look back?

Would you cry

if you saw me cryin'?

And would you save my soul tonight?

Would you tremble

if I touched your lips?

Would you laugh?

Oh please tell me this.

Now, would you die

for the one you love?

Hold me in your arms tonight.

I can be your hero, baby.

I can kiss away the pain.

I will stand by you forever.

You can take my breath away.

Would you swear

that you'll always be mine?

Would you lie?

Would you run and hide?

Am I in too deep?

Have I lost my mind?

I don't care, you're here tonight.

I can be your hero, baby.

I can kiss away the pain.

I will stand by you forever.

You can take my breath away.

Oh, I just wanna hold you.

I just wanna hold you, oh yeah.

Am I in too deep?

Have I lost my mind?

Well, I don't care, you're here tonight.

I can be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain, oh yeah.

I will stand by you forever.

You can take my breath away.

I can be your hero, baby.

I can kiss away the pain.

I will stand by you forever.

You can take my breath away.

You can take my breath away.

I can be your hero.

These pictures emphasise the genre conventions associated with romantic songs as they show the on-screen couple sharing intimate moments. The first photo shows a close up of them looking like they're about to kiss. The fact that the male has his face above the females could be to show his dominance and how he can 'save' her with his love. This correlates with the title lyrics 'I can be your hero baby'. The second photo is a key part of the narrative when they male is dying and the female is kissing and holding him, whilst crying. This long shot emphasises the mise-en-scene and and shows how small they are as a couple who have been defeated. The saddening plot twist in the music video may appeal to the predominantly female target audience as it is a common belief that all women want a 'hero'. The music video has played on this preconception and used it to create emotion within the music video to appeal to the audience. 

                                 

At the end of the music video, the lead female is left alone and hasn't got a hero anymore after the male is killed. This doesn't suit the lyrics, however, the dramatic music video still emphasises the emotions and realities of love. The irony of the fact that the lyrics states that he can be her 'hero' is also emphasised as it is him who needs saving in the end and she cannot do that for him. She can't 'kiss away the pain' like he said he would within the lyrics, and this mid-shot of her standing still against the chaos around her emphasises her loneliness and the realisation that her 'hero' is no longer alive.

Queen - We Are The Champions - Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall's Reception Theory (Queen - We Are The Champions)

As this video is a performance based music video, I believe that the preferred reading that the producer intended to put accross was to recreate the concert experience by having the flashing lights, shaking camera and the camera angled towards the stage a lot of the time. It also puts accross the fact that the band perform well live as well as in the studio. Another idea could be that due to the cheering fans holding up banners for them and screaming their names, the lyrics 'we are the champions' are proven as they have a fanbase and are looked up to by many people. It is an issue of showing their success or 'showing off' to show that they are established artists who have made it.

The negotiated reading could be that the audience don't like the music but realise that they are successful and can portray themselves in such a way as they earnt it. They could also find his outfit uncomfortable to look at but like the natural, laid back performance based video and the simplicity of it.

The oppositional reading could be that the audience dislike the music and think the video has no substance but is simply the band parading around in awkward unmanly outfits like toddlers, singing about their success. It can be taken as a stuck up attempt at acknowledging their own talents.

M.I.A - Bad Girls (Concept Based Music Video)

This music video by M.I.A ia based highly controversial concept which can be interpreted in a number of ways. One interpretation can be that M.I.A wanted the video to reflect the lyrics 'Live fast, die young' by showing rebellion and how people of culture's that seem 'oppressed' such as the arab one, can be seen in a different light. The first thing I noticed about this music video, having previously watched her other videos is that as much as she's trying to stand out, she's actually following stereotypes and using them as a sort of 'back drop' to her video. For example, having women wearing bright, bold outfits whilst also complying by the arab religious dress (niqab, fully covered) in a controversial way has already been done as well as showing people have fun in the deserts of Arabia (this video was shot in Morocco). One could argue that this concept based video does actually follow many conventions of hip hop videos as they seek to have that shock factor whilst including props such as gold jewellery (better known as bling) and fast cars.

However, despite the fact that cars have been shown racing which is not something which is foreign to music videos, the actual cars used are reasonably priced cars rather than the typical sports cars shown to represent wealth and success. Whilst most videos use cars to 'show off', this video uses cars as a source of fun, unwinding and rebellion. This could also have been done to make the stunts easier or less risky as they're not working with expensive cars or simply because the director wanted to show some sort of normality against the crazy backdrop. In relation to this, the desert horse's shown galloping through the sands could have been used to show the last/older generation of Arab's ways e.g. on horse or camel back opposed to how people are now. This represents how things can change, even cultural norms.

In relation to the effects used within this video, a vast amount of the shots seem to have minor edits such as lighting tweaks making the orange tinted, slightly dim and calm atmosphere consistent throughout the video. In addition to this, the image below showing a man on a dessert horse is shown in slow motion which signifies the contrast between the traditional view of a dominant, independent man and the modern Arab men and women who just want to have fun and live in a lively, fast-paced environment. The fact that the cars are racing and are shown from different angles such as from the floor looking up and full length shots works well with and is completely different to the slow, smooth one take shot of the horse and man often shown in between the racing clips.

Another part of the mise-en-scene I noticed in this music video was the costume. The costume used within this video is something that is fairly self explainatory in terms that the men are wearing the traditional arab cultural dress (all white and scarf on head) whilst there have been some alterations to what the women wear. The women are shown wearing leapord prints and polka dots which are bold in comparison to the dark colours usually worn by arab woman. Despite this, the outfit is still regonisable as the arab dress because they are fully covered and are also wearing hijabs. M.I.A is often described as a feminist and shows these women in what could be described as a western scenario of a woman wearing make up sitting in the front seat of a car. Make-up makes people look better or enhances their features, something which is not permissible in Islam and therefore arab countries as they follow the shariah law however these women are represented as being beautiful and independent in their ways. Even their facial expressions along with M.I.A's are often chin up and exute confidence.

The music video starts with an establishing shot which straight away signifies that the video is set in the desert. There are multiple mid range shots used which show people going about their daily lives such as men socialising and smoking and a long shot to show others travelling, and clinging onto a small minivan. The music video generally starts off showing a slightly normal landscape of a moroccan dessert but as the music starts to build up, more abstract shots are shown. For example, the women in their animal print clothing. Going back to people going about their daily lives, the image below shows older Arab men in comparison to the younger generation shown later however they are still in the same environment as each other. The camera angle shows the men not acknowledging each other and minding their  own business with the sun shining through them, making their facial expressions hard to see.

In regards to M.I.A herself, we must remember that as an artist, one of the main aims of a music video is to further establish and promote an artist and their music. As someone who is a part of the hip hop industry, she follows the conventions of hip hop video with her costumes. She wears 5 different outfits throughout the music video, and only in one does she not wear heavy gold jewellery, also known as 'bling'. The hooded jacket she is wearing is often part of the style of clothing worn my male hip hop artists whilst women tend to wear revealing and/or tight clothing to show off their 'assets'. M.I.A stands out as a unique artist who is defying certain conventions to perhaps portray her distinguishable sense of style and personality.

In this shot, and throughout the video, M.I.A is seen gyrating her hips which is something which would be frowned upon in an Islamic state and the culture she is trying to represent. This style of dance however is a conventional trait of her style of music and adds some 'normality' of the western style of living.

Again, in regards to the mise en scene, there were several shots included within this music video which represented chaos and destruction but in a slighty positive or carefree manner. For example, the fire behind the artist when she's dancing is simply a part of the scenery rather than something which is seen as out of the norm. In the print screen below, you can see the street racers with smoke around their cars which is something they're hardly taking notice of. The rebellious theme of this music video is further represented by creating a chaotic environment and although when the music video has been broken down, the shots may seem random, they actually work well and have possibly been used to add to the unconventional and slightly crazy environment.

The portrayal of Arab women and womens rights in the middle east is a dominant ideology which has been incorperated within this video. The shot below shows women driving, which is something women cannot legaly do in countries such as Saudi Arabia. After doing some background research, I found out that M.I.A supports a movement which aims to make it legal for women to drive in these countries. In the print screen, not only can you see women driving, but you can also see them putting their heads and arms out of the car and almost cheering. The background shows them in an empty desert and what is interesting about this particular shot is that when the men are driving, you see the male onlookers cheering them on whilst this shot focus's solely on the women and how they may be equal to the men or have been set free with no eyes on them.

The transitions used are in sync with the beat of the music, and shots are shown for the the duration of each beat throughout most of the song. In general however, the music video uses simple transitions such as blackout and whiteout which we can hardly notice as the video has more emphasis on the mise en scene used.

In the screen shot below, you can see a shot I found particularly interesting. The camera goes through the cars in the opposite direction which creates an almost 3D effect, making it look like the cars are coming towards the audience. A dolly can be used to create a similar effect, however a car with a camera attatched to it has been used driving in the opposite direction which is a simple but effective way to create the same effect.

 

Stuart Hall's Reception Theory

This music video is a particularly controversial one, and whilst the lyrics aren't exactly insightful, the video represents the middle eastern/Arab culture in a less than stereotypical way.

The preferred reading would be to portray a different side of the west opposed to what is usually shown on the news or in documentories for example as they usually show the more serious, shariah law ruled stated of saudi arabia and how they live this supposed 'sheltered' life. This video shows a more rebellious, underground side of the Arab way of life which puts more focus on their culture as opposed to their religion. I believe that the preferred readin that the producers were trying to encode was to show a more vibrant, unique Arab culture and open people's minds up to show that they just like having fun (the men) and dressing up (the women) just like people in the west do.

The negotiated reading could be that the controversy of this video makes it slighly politically incorrect due to the fact that they show the women in hijab trying to look astheatically appealing which defeats the whole point of the hijab or because there's a fire in the background which could relate to bombs and the stereotypes behind Islam/Arabs. However, people might also be in the middle because despite all of this, there are elements of truth behind what is represented in the music video therefore what's so wrong with showing it to the rest of the world?

The oppositional reading would most likely be Muslims claiming that the music video is insensitive towards Islam and the ruling behind it regarding guarding a womans modesty and even being associated with music and free mixing which is clearly shown in the video. People may say that it gives the wrong impression and makes it look like this is what modern day muslims/Arabs may be like when it may only be a minority. Also, the lyrics include 'blow you with a bang' which could be referring to bombs and again, offend people of a more traditional Arab culture.

Types of music videos

There are three main types of music videos.
Music videos can either be performance, narrative or concept based.

Performance based videos consist of the artist/band performing their song in order to interact with the audience. This may be done at a gig/concert or just a studio where they perform the song. This is quite an easy method for the artist to create a music video and it is also cheaper. Performance based videos promote the artist very well as the video shows them performing and may show the audience having a good time which could make the audience want to go and buy tickets.

Narrative based is where the artist tells a story within the music video. The storyline may fit in with the lyrics however this does not happen all the time. The video includes actors to help tell the story and sometimes the artist may lip sync in order for the artist to create a connection with the audience.

Concept based videos do not necessarily have a storyline or a performance as they are based around a certain concept. The footage does not need to make sense to the audience as concept based videos are usually known for being unique.

The History Of Music Videos

The History Of Music Videos on Prezi

Filming Technique

I decided to look at some pictures which showed behind the scenes for music videos as i wanted to get a feel of what I will be doing and because it has to be near professional so I researched these shots which are from professional shoots:


I decided to look at some pictures which showed behind the scenes for music videos as i wanted to get a feel of what I will be doing and because it has to be near professional so I researched these shots which are from professional shoots:

The camera work in these pictures are fully focused which shows me that I need to really focus on the quality of camera shots and angles during my production.

Introduction

Having read the specification for my G234 Advanced Portfolio, I am excited to start my quest to create a music video. I will be posting all of my work onto this blog page in order to create a medium where all of my work can be accessed and edited in chronological order.