Music Video Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ3ZM8FDBlg&feature=player_embedded

Pinks Sober video has elements of both performance and concept based music video's. There are several scenes of Pink emotionally singing to the camera in many different locations, however there are also many scenes, props, effects, costume elements and symbols that would suggest that the video has a symbolic meaning behind it. At the beginning of the video there are clips of a church or religious building, suggesting there is some kind of religious aspect to the video. Later on, near the end of the video there are again clips of christian crosses.

In the video there is a strong contrast in the colour choices, in costume, location and lighting. Pink has several outfits during this video, especially as she has a 'doppelganger'. One version of herself is dressed in white lingerie and is 'sober', representing a pure, good side of herself, whereas another version of herself is dressed in black lingerie and is drunk or 'high', suggesting there are two sides to her. However in both costumes, the lighting is very dark and occasionally a red light is flashed on her, which could symbolise the devil or evil. This combined with the religious aspects of the video could be suggesting that the sober Pink that is trying to save her drunk, reckless Pink is either God or the part of God in herself.

The scenes where Pink is trapped in a completely white room, wearing a white pageboy wig and old fashioned costume could be symbolising how trapped she is, by her recklessness and addiction. The pageboy wig could be trying to suggest she is like a pageboy, (a pageboy was traditionally a young male servant for a noble men). The fact that she is trapped in this room could be symbolising how she is a servant to her addiction and can not escape it, no matter how hard she tries.

The scenes where Pink is making out with her 'doppelganger', who is essentially representing herself, could be symbolising a few things. Firstly it could be symbolising how she is the only person that can make herself feel happy, but as she is representing the drunk version of herself, it could be suggesting that she can only be happy when she is intoxicated. However it could be symbolising how she is the only person that can help her beat her addication, as she is finding relief from addiction through sex. It could also be symbolising the church again, and could be illustrating how drugs and intoxication can led to things they consider to being against religious law (same-sex love).

Music Video Analysis

Passenger- Let Her Go

This music video is of the acoustic folky genre and is mainly a performance video, but also contains a very simple narrative, which is very typical for this genre of music.. It is set on a stage as it is performance and the costume is casual clothing, suggesting that he is generally a casual performer. The narrative parts of the video are giving a short insight into their preparations for performer.
The back drop for the stage is very similar to their album cover, meaning a theme is continued throughout their work- as a kind of motif- linking all their products together. There is a lot of close ups in this video of the artist- which is one of the codes and conventions of music videos, created by Andrew Goodwin in his Book (Dancing in the Distraction Factory), as part of the 'Goodwin 7'.The close ups help us to identify the artist, which is the main reason we watch music videos and buy music. Another one of the Goodwin 7 that is used in this video in the relationship between the music and video. For example, at the beginning when there is just the sound of the keyboard being played, the video shows the key board being played, in the correct notes. This creates the feel of an actual performance, but one that we can see close up, making the audience of the video feel as if they have an insight into the artists life.
The lighting used in this video is very typical performance lighting, spotlights in the key singers and instrument players.  I like how the lights change colour in accordance to the beat and tone of the music.
I think that as the song for my music video is of a similar genre, I will have to have a some kind of performance- either instruments or singers. I like this video, but would have preferred to see more narrative and less performance.

Original ideas

These are my original ideas of songs for my A2 music video. Each mind map is a different song, and these are my first ideas for each song:

Director Study- Hype Williams

Created with Padlet

Video Music Task

Final Cut Express Lesson

This is the tutorial that Shannon, Ben and I did to learn how to do split screen on Final Cut Express and to show other people how to do it. We all contributed to writing the script for it, and then Ben read it out whilst me and Shannon demonstrated how to do it on Final Cut Express. Split screening is basically layering footage on top of another piece of footage in the same location and cutting it down to make it fit. This task was really useful as now we have tutorials on all the key techniques need for music videos.

Iconic Music Video

This rock music video is quite iconic and groundbreaking as the images on screen do not match the lyrics of the song. It was one of the first videos to be comical and to show men dressed as women- this was a very new idea in the 1980's. This music video is unlike many of the video's from the 80's as it's not just a band playing and singing on screen, but actually involves other arts (dancing and acting). 'I want to break free' uses a lot of 'special effects', which had not really been done before in music videos and was a very new concept in the early 80's.

I personally feel this video, although slightly dated, is a good iconic music video and is actually better than some modern music videos as it contradicts the traditional method of matching lyrics and visuals!

I like how its unlike any of their early videos, which just feature them performing on stage or signing to the camera.

I think it's really interesting how this music video goes against several of Goodwins key features of music videos. Firstly, it goes against the conventions of rock music videos as it doesn't show the band on stage playing instruments and performing. There is also very little relationship between lyrics and visuals which is unusual for music videos. However there are intertextual references to current events in this video. The part where Queen are surrounded by miners, singing the chorus line of 'I want to break free', is a reference to the miners strikes in 1984. This may have been usual for over 'POP' bands of the time, but for Rock bands in the 1980's it was unusual. This video is also controversial in terms of the image of women, as instead of using women to attract male attention they are doing the opposite by dressing the male band members as women (it's not pretty!!).