2. GENRE
A style or category of art, music, or literature
Genre is important because it engages target audience in order to be successful. Its important for audiences so there are
engaged in the genre in order for them to the specific media text.
Genre theory: Daniel Chandler – conventions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular
conventions of content (such as themes or settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which are shares by the texts
which are regarded as belonging to them.
You need to know the genre of a music video in order to attract an audience
Why are they important? What do they do? What theories or theorist are relevant to them?
How do they relate to the music video/ short film?
How will these concepts inform your production in terms of planning?
How can you apply these concepts to analysis of music video/short film
3. NARRATIVE
A spoken or written account of connected events; a story.
Propp’s Narrative theory: argued that whatever the surface difference
between stories and fairy tales, they all share the same internal
structure.
You need a narrative because it allows the audience to pay more
attention to the video and tells a story.
4. REPRESENTATION
The action of speaking or acting on behalf of
someone or the state of being so
represented
The term refers to the process involved as
well as to its products. For instance, in
relation to the key markers of identity.
Class, age, gender and ethnicity (the ‘cage’
of identity)- representation involves not only
how identities are represented (or rather
constructed) within the text but also how
they’re constructed in the process of
production and reception.
5. AUDIENCE
The assembled spectators or listeners at a public event such as a play, film,
concert, or meeting
The effects model
The effects model: the consumption of media texts has an effect or influence
upon the audience. It’s normally considered that this effect is negative.
Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence. The power lies
with the message of the text.
Hypodermic Model: here the messages in media texts are injected into the
audience by the powerful, synergetic, media. The audience is powerfulness to
resist. Therefore, the media works like a drug and the audience is drugged,
addicted, doped or duped.
An audience is important when creating a music video. You need to know
what your target audience would like to watch and listen to.
6. MEDIA LANGUAGE
Media conventions, formats, symbols and narrative structures which cue the audience to
meaning. The symbolic language of electronic media work much the same way as grammar
works in print media.
Stuart hall: encoding and decoding; preferred/ negotiated/ oppositional readings
Denis McQuail – Uses and Gratifications theory (audiences consume media texts for
Suveillance; Fersonal Identity; Presnal Relationships; Escapism/ Diversion.
Ien Ang – “audiencehood is becoming an even more multifaceted and diversified repertoire
of practices and experiences.”
Media language is used to tell story and is part of editing. The tempo of the music drives
the editing. Genre might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance,
camera and editing styles. Camerawork impacts meaning. Movement, angle and shot
distance all play a part in the representation of the artist/band (close-ups dominate).
Digital effects often enhance editing, which manipulate the original images to offer
different kinds of pleasure for the audience.
7. ANDREW
GOODWIN
1. Music videos more often than not tend to include a demonstration of typical genre characteristics and can also link to film genres, known as
intertextuality.
2. There are frequent references to the notion of looking and the voyeuristic treatment of the female body. Voyeurism: widely used to sell the artist’s
music through sex appeal.
3. There is a succinct relationship between music and visuals.
4. The record label which the artist is assigned to tends to have certain demands, which often include the needs for lots of close ups of the artist. The
artist tends to have a visual style that reappears throughout their work.
5. There’s often intertextual references to films, TV programmes and other music videos. Audiences tend to like being ‘in on the joke’.
Andrew Goodwin states that there are 5 key aspects to music videos
1. Thought through beat (seeing what the lyrics mean in your head)
Step one analyse the music structure understanding the chorus and verses.
Step two the voice of the artist will be unique and easy to identify
Step three the story the artist is try to tell using the song.
2. Relationship between the song and the visuals. There are three ways visuals are used to promote a song
One illustrate
The use of images and shots to explain the meaning.
Two disjuncture
The situation.
Three amplify
Repeatability- when the images and camera shots are manipulated and shown repeatedly throughout the video and is embedded into your vision.
3. Narrative and performance of the song.
Andrew Goodwin believed that a music video can promote a song through the way it analyses the lyrics e.g. when the character does exactly what
the song says/
4. Technical aspect of a music video
Andrew Goodwin believed that it was important for an artist to be involved in the music video by performing or acting out a role as the main
character or singer, helping make the song look more realistic and providing the audience a special connection and understanding of the song
5. Star image (protagonist), lots of camera shots making him/her the centre of attention.
Andrew Goodwin referred to the star image as a vital aspect of the music videos, the artist make the video look more appealing to the audience
while bringing a unique style to the video in the way the artist is portrayed to the audience.
