Music Video History Timeline

In order to understand more about music videos, the class and I were set the task to create a timeline featuring key dates in music video history such as the music video precursor or the creation of MTV and what it has helped me to do is understand where music videos come from and how music in films such as musicals/sing-a-longs was so influential in the music industry.

Financial Infographic

This information was gathered by ECG Productions, the link is: http://www.ecgprod.com/why-music-videos-dont-cost-500-00/ Initially I wanted to include the maximum costs but entering them caused the smaller figures to disappear.

The info graphic that I have created shows the costs of creating a music video in terms of ECG productions which I think is quite interesting as despite the music video budgets being considerable smaller that previous years the costs are relatively high but yet they still manage to get by.

Infographic Random facts

In class we were given the task to find out various pieces of information about music videos and then out them into an info graphic and that's what I did, the facts I got were very interesting as looking at the most expensive music videos, in my opinion they may have more too them however videos today in my opinion have more too them but require a significantly smaller budget to produce a piece of equal or greater quality.

Codes and Conventions of Music Videos

Codes and Conventions of  R Kelly - Ignition (Remix) and Rizzle Kicks - Lost Generation

In the video even though they seem to be in a club its quite bright which can relate to happiness as everyone is having a good time and this brightness may suggest that everyone wants to see R Kelly as it would be harder to do so in low key lighting. This isn't normally associated with R&B/Hip Hop. Normally its all about the dark colours to represent anger but with this its the opposite, everyone looks happy. The close ups featured focus on the artists expressions which don't seem to be bad but rather they are also having a good time which suggest status, power and money make you happier in life.

Conventions of R Kellys Ignition (Ignition) is that there several low angle shots of the artist. This gives them power and as they are looking down on the viewer rather than at an equal level. This means that the audience is then looking up to them which is often used when describing a role model. In addition to low angles, there are also a fair amount of close up of the artist as it makes the audience focus on the artists face. This can be seen as power and status as the artist takes up the frame forcing the audience to look at them, in a sense they have power over the audience
Another possible convention is that the artist is wearing a basketball shirt which at the time was very prominent in R&B/Hip Hop music videos but not so much today.
In this music video, it can be seen that R Kelly has various expensive jewelry and accessories which is a common feature among hip hop videos as it shows that the artist has a lot of wealth. 

Like R Kellys video this also lacks low key lighting excluding when it was briefly night time. This seems to be more prominent more and more and it could mean that artists are trying to break out of whats expected. The bright lighting makes it clear that everyone is having fun and the lack of low angles suggest everyone is equal if not the audience has the higher power. The lack of chains is a symbolic code as it is referencing that they maybe becoming less influential and thus resulting in a lack of power.

There are less hip hop conventions in this video. The artists have hardly any flashy jewelry and in this there are high angles of the artist which gives the impression that the audience has the power and that the audience possibly controls the music industry. However what convention is still the same is that in the video there is a large gathering of people standing around one of the artists while he is dancing suggesting that he has status but the lack of low angles suggests they have less power that hip hop artists used to have.

Both videos promote the artists as they both have some sort of large group of people having fun around them however it seems that R Kellys one is more successful as he seems flashier  lots more people around him having fun whereas in the Rizzle Kicks video they have less power and status as him because they get their bikes rob by two little kids in front of attractive women and then when they try to get it back they also get beaten up by them. That is the opposite of the stereotypical convention of a hip hop video.

The task we were given was to compare the codes and conventions of two music videos and I chose the two videos above because they are both from the Hip-Hop/R&B genre except the Rizzle Kicks is alternative and I found that looking at them together enabled me to see clearly, what actually differed between the two and what makes a music video alternative such as challenging stereotypical conventions and potentially creating new ones.

Codes and Conventions

In class today we had a brief look at codes and conventions and established the different kinds that we would be taught about. The introduction  to this was not long due to the previous experience we had from the AS course.

Codes

Codes in a media text are the way to establish a meaning in texts. There are three types of codes:

• Technical codes: The way the text is constructed technically  camera angles, framing, typography etc

• Verbal codes: Everything to do with language either written or spoken.

• Symbolic codes: Codes that can be decoded on a mainly connotational level. These are things that draw upon the audiences personal experiences and understandings of other media texts, cultural frame of reference.

Conventions

These are commonly understood ways of doing things in a media text which are the easiest points to identify the genre of a media text. There are two types:

• Technical: This would be something such as the narrative of the music video as it easy to identify and would most likely be associated with indie music 

• Generic: Generic conventions are the features shown by media texts that allow them to be put into a specific genre for example In a rock music video you'd expect to see a drummer or lead guitarist.

DJ Fresh VS Diplo Feat. Dominique Young Unique - Earthquake

I had come across this song a few times prior to the film however I never knew the artists behind it so i was not able to find it until I saw "Kick Ass 2". It was heard at some points during the film which I liked, as to me, the beat of the song is great. As I wanted to hear it again I went and looked it up on You Tube and came across this interesting video. Initially I thought the film was promoting the song but looking at the video I realised i was wrong. The video shows a group of presumably ordinary people who have become vigilantes who wander the streets looking to stop crime which is the concept behind Kick Ass. What I also came across in the video is that not only are there characters referencing Kick Ass 2 but that they are almost crushed by a Kick Ass 2 billboard that is seen by the audience long enough for them to notice what they are being seen. This was a smart way for them to subtly promote the film as many people like this song so the visuals seen are more likely result in more customers for the film. This however works both ways as I found the song through the film and as soon as I found out that same evening I had to listen to that song

Importance to a music video

This is what me and my classmate Brandon thought of as the most important to a successful music video, the bottom ones are not necessarily unimportant but rather that we just thought that the top 4 tiers had a higher importance but this is based solely on opinions. 

Purpose of a Music Video

 In order to create our own music video we needed to understand why they were created and in order to do so we were given some information on the topic, enough to give us an insight so we knew what it was which encourage me to do further research into the topic and it has broadened my knowledge as initially I believe it was solely to make money and promote the artist however it was also used to promote other businesses goods if they paid to have their goods showcased by popular artists.

Summer Homework Music Video

Mordecai and the Rigbys perform Alice Coopers Schools Out

I used a clip from Regular Show where the main characters form a band, originally the clip was around 1 minute. I used the song Schools Out by Alice Cooper. This was not that hard to make however there were some parts that needed to be slowed down, reversed etc as the lyrics were sometimes too fast for the video to keep up with and other parts needed to be filled. There were some parts for example the close-up of the birds face on using the mic were the lip syncing worked really well as the timing was good and it seemed as though the words were actually being sung.

The task above was a summer homework which was to create a music video using a set playlist and finding footage that I thought would work well with my song choice. The majority of the task we pretty straightforward however the actual editing of the piece was a lot trickier as it involved various editing techniques such as slowing and reversing clips which I have not used for quite a while so the this task helped me get back into editing slightly as I have been out of practice.