2.  Genre- videos should represent stereotypes and conventions of the genre.
e.g, girl band = dancing.
 Sound and Vision- clear relationship between lyrics and visuals. for
example the video can be-
 Illustrative- the visuals literally represent the lyrics.
 Contradictory- the visuals contrast with the lyrics.
 Amplification- manipulation of the audience through repetition of key
meanings.
 Disjuncture- the songs meaning is ignored.
 Notions of Looking- we are ‗watching‘ the performer and gaining pleasure
from it. Related to voyeurism. Typically features windows and mirrors etc.
 Star Image- promotion of the star through the video using frequent close
ups and recurring motifs to represent the artist.
 Intertextuality- reference to other media texts (such as other songs, films
etc.). Allows the audience to quickly decode the meaning.

3.  Simon Frith stated that ―music videos may
be characterised by three broad typologies:
performance, narrative and conceptual‖
(1988)

4.  Performance videos, the most common type
(Frith 1988) feature the star or group singing
in concert to wildly enthusiastic fans.
 The aim is to convey a sense of the in-
concert experience.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmXLzY8k
bYA

5.  Performance videos that display the star or
group in the studio remind the viewer that
the soundtrack and album are still important.
 ―Performance oriented visuals cue viewers
that, indeed, the recording of the music is the
most significant element‖ (Gow, 1992)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGPeNN9
S0Fg

6.  A video may tell any kind of story in linear,
cause-effect sequencing. Love stories are
the most common narrative mode in music
video and normally follow the pattern of boy
meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.
Action in the story is dominated by males
who do things and females who passively
react or wait for something to happen
(Schwichtenberg, 1992).
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M97vR2V
4vTs

7.  Conceptual videos rely on poetic form, primarily
metaphor (Frith, 1988). The conceptual video can
be metaphysical poetry articulated through visual
and verbal elements.
 ―These videos make significant use of the visual
element, presenting to the eye as well as the ear,
and in doing so, conveying truths inexpressible
discursively‖ (Lorch 1988).
 ―Conceptual videos do not tell a story in linear
fashion, but rather create a mood, a feeling to be
evoked in the experience of viewing‖ (Frith 1988)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuZE_IRwLNI
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O1_3zBUKM8

8.  Continuing on with your video analysis,
consider how Frith‘s theory, which of his
three typologies is your video?
 Performance?
 Narrative?
 Conceptual?
 What about Andrew Goodwin‘s theory? How
does that apply?
You will be continuing this into next lesson.

9.  In your video analysis you should include:
 Shot type
 Camera (position, angle and movement)
 Transition (editing)
 Mise-en-scene
 Representation
 Narrative
 Genre
 Iconography
 Audience
 Micro and Macro Elements!

10.  ―Pop performer‖ and ―pop star‖ are not the
same thing.
 ‗Pop stars‘ have lasting significance and
have ―brand awareness.‖

11.  Pop stars are constructed, they are artificial
images, even if they are represented as being
―real people‖.
 Helps if they have a USP – they can therefore
be copied or parodied because of it.
 Their representation may be metonymic.
 Pop stars have the advantage over film stars in
that their constructed image may be much more
consistent over a period of time and is not
consistent over a period of time and is not
dependent on the creative input of others.

12.  ―A star is an image not a real person this is
constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is)
out of a range of materials (e.g. advertising,
magazines etc. as well as films [music]).‖

13.  Yet that construction process is neither automatic nor
fully understood. Record companies think they know
about it — but witness the number of failures on their
books. TV programmes such as The X Factor show us
the supposed construction process, how an ordinary
person is groomed, styled and coached into fulfilling a
set of record company and market expectations. This is
not true stardom, which must happen through a
combination of factors. None of them labelled 'X'.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWWMt_rZpwY
 As a record buying public, we prefer to believe in stars
who are their own and our constructions rather than a
transparent offering designed explicitly to appeal to our
blander taste buds served up by a record company
interested only in our wallets.

14.  Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve a purpose — to
make money out of audiences, who respond to various elements of a
star persona by buying records and becoming fans.
 Stars are the cogs around which a plethora of record company gears find
themselves turning. Record companies nurture and shape their stars —
as the TV talent show processes have shown us. They tend to
manufacture what they think audiences want, hence the 'photocopied'
nature of many boy bands, teen bands etc.
 However, there are whole markets out there who are not convinced by
the hype and don't want to spend their money on blandness. The record
industry also has a duty to provide bands/artists who are perceived as
'real' (for 'real, maybe read 'ugly' or unpolished) for these audiences.
Stars can also be created by this route.
 Pop stars, whatever their nature, are quite clearly the product of their
record company — and they must be sold.
 ―Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their
meanings.‖

15.  The music industry is well aware of the range of audiences it caters to, the perky
pre-school Tweenie fan to the ageing hippy, and it does its best to keep us all
happy.
 Historically, the industry has provided us with a range of commodities all with
different appeal. One way to achieve this is by producing new stars of different
types playing constantly mutating genres of music - there's always something and
someone fresh to choose from (important for the younger audience).
 Another way is to produce a star with long-lasting appeal, who, once their brand is
established, can cater to a fan audience for decades (in the way U2 or the Rolling
Stones have done).
 Unfortunately, these methods are oppositional. The 'conveyor belt' approach to
new stars means that talent isn't developed, and a star's value may be very short-
lived. A star may only be significant or relevant for two years, or two albums.
 Too much focus on 'golden oldies' means that younger fans can't identify with
stars, whom they see as belonging to their parents' generation. A healthy music
industry develops both types of talent, and generates a diverse range of stars,
who mean different things to different audience segments.
 Many pundits who say that the music industry is in the doldrums claim it is
because this range of meanings is absent, or because the meaning of the modern
star is superficial and transient.

16.  Stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes, and promote a certain
ideology. Audience interest in these values enhances their 'star quality', and
it is through conveying beliefs, ideas, and opinions outside music that
performers help create their star persona.
 A star may initiate a fashion trend, with legions of fans copying their
hairstyle and clothing. Stars initiate or benefit from cultural discourse (e.g.
via their Twitter feed), and create an on-going critical commentary. Now
more than ever before, social networks give pop stars the opportunity to
establish their own values outside their music. Lady Gaga tweets frequently
about LGBT issues, and expects her Little Monsters to engage with that
discourse just as much as she expects them to listen to her music.
 Stardom, and star worship in general is a cultural value in itself. Ideologies
drawn upon include materialism and sexuality. Whole sites of institutional
support (e.g. radio & TV shows, magazines, websites) are devoted to star
scrutiny, and it seems we can never get enough information.
 Stars also provide us with a focal point for our own cultural thinking —
particularly to do with Youth & Sexuality.

17.  A star begins as a "real" human, possessing gender & race
characteristics, and existing against a socio-historic
background. The star transformation process turns them
into a construct, but the construct has a foundation in the
real. We tend to read them as not-entirely-fictional, as
being are very much of their time and culture, the product
of a particular generation.
 Stars provide audiences with a focus for ideas of 'what
people are supposed to be like' (e.g. for women,
thin/beautiful) - they may support hegemony by conforming
to it (thin/beautiful) or providing difference (fat/still lovable).
 Much of the discussion of stars in celebrity magazines is
about how stars compare to the current hegemonic ideal,
and how we compare to the stars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THdoZMeJx1Y

18.  ―In these terms it can be argued that stars are representations of
persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter the
prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human being in
this society. There is a good deal at stake in such conceptions.
On the one hand, our society stresses what makes them like
others in the social group/class/gender to which they belong.
This individualising stress involves a separation of the person's
"self" from his/her social "roles", and hence poses the individual
against society. On the other hand society suggests that certain
norms of behaviour are appropriate to given groups of people,
which many people in such groups would now wish to contest
(e.g. the struggles over representation of blacks, women and
gays in recent years).Stars are one of the ways in which
conceptions of such persons are promulgated.‖
 Richard Dyer – The Stars (BFI Education 1979)

19.  Film stars are represented primarily through their
roles — written by faceless screenwriters. The
personality and characteristics making them
similar/different are created for them by others, and
their overall image is constructed from many
fragmented parts, which may or may not contradict
each other. They may indeed represent a perceived
appropriate norm of behaviour but it takes several
similar movies to create this effect. Film stars may
survive individual flops — there are always other
movies in the can — and embody several different
values simultaneously. It's more difficult if you're in
the music industry.

20.  Pop stars, on the other hand, establish their character and personality
through songs and performance and will strive for immediate star identity
with a first album. They appear to have more control over their persona in
that many of them write their own songs, and that their body of work
develops, chronologically over time, along with society.
 Pop stars don't do aberrant costume dramas or science fiction movies
which take them out of place in time and space and confuse their
audience.
 They produce 45-74 minutes of music which gives a clear indication of
their interests, moods, appetites and lifestyle at a particular point in time;
audiences read music=person, and will base their understanding of the
star's persona on the sentiments expressed by their songs.
 This understanding may be very personal and intimate, the star's music
can infiltrate every corner of a fan's life. Albums are continually read and
re-read as texts think of the 100+ times you might listen to a track,
whereas films tend to be watched once or twice only.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1oM3kQpXRo

21.  Because a pop star's persona is constructed on the basis
of a narrow text, continually re-read and reassessed, this
may lead, in many cases, to second album syndrome,
when an artist is unable to sustain their persona over a
period of time (largely because they got rich off the back of
the first album and bought all the houses, cars, etc. they'd
ever wanted) and they are unable to create a consistent
account of their character and personality in their second
major release. The root of their persona then disappears,
or becomes confused.
 A pop star's persona, therefore, as depicted in terms of
character and personality, is a fragile thing which needs
constant nurturing, and is the product of constant
discourse between the star and his or her audience.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3D5FwwtNVM

22.  There needs to be a strong and coherent
relationship between narrative and
performance in music promos.
 Music videos will cut between a narrative
and a performance of the song by the band.
 A carefully choreographed dance might be
part of the artist‘s performance or an extra
aspect of the video designed to aid
visualisation and the ‗repeatability‘ factor.

23.  You should have made a start on your video
analysis yesterday.
 Which video are you doing?

24.  In your video analysis you should include:
 Shot type
 Camera (position, angle and movement)
 Transition (editing)
 Mise-en-scene
 Representation
 Narrative
 Genre
 Iconography
 Audience
 Micro and Macro Elements!
Don‘t forget:
• Firth
• Goodwin
• Dyer
• Archer