Purpose of the Music Video

A Model of the Media

Case Study 3 - Alex Southam

Case Study 2 - Emil Nava

Case Study 1: Jamie Thraves

 


Budget:£100,000 budget
Time it took to shoot: 3 days





Budget: £200,000

Sexism in Pop Videos

Case Study: Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was born on 29th August 1958 and died on 25th June 2009, he was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actor. Called the King of Pop, his contributions to music and dance, along with his publicised personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.
The eighth child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his elder brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971. In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. 

Rock With You - 1979



The unusual use of lighting and costuming is used to express his emotions of love and affection. His less-is-more approach is what makes this video so legendary as it's just him singing the song in a microphone with a mixture of long shots, mid shots and close ups.

Billie Jean - 1982



The following year, Jackson took less of a subtle approach with his signature moonwalks. This video told a story which amplified the meaning of the lyrics. With detectives following him, obviously looking for evidence to prosecute him, it seems as if this video mirrored what he was actually going through in his actual life- or at least he felt that way.


Thriller - 1983



Budget: $500,000
Jackson didn't have to pay for the video because he made a deal with MTV and Showtime which covered the costs. Showtime got to air a one hour special with the 'making of' documentary  and the 14-minute film before it was broadcasted anywhere else.

This music video is considered the most famous of all time, the Library of Congress added it to its National Film Registry in 2009. The video was a cultural milestone introducing:

- elaborate choreography
- costumes and dialogue
- the concept of the long-form music video, where a mini-movie was made for the song, then edited into a short version for the song

The video won the Best Performance Video award, alongside Best Choreography and Viewer's Choice at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984.

Its famous graveyard dance started the trend of group dance scenes in pop videos.




Overall, Michael Jackson used his videos to reinvent his image, tell stories and address serious issues.

Case Study - Katy Perry

Audience Reception Theory

Audiences receive and respond to texts very differently. The different effects generate varied responses. It is a way to characterise and group together different audience (consumer) interpretations

Stuart Hall created the Encoding Decoding Theory: producers encode meaning/ ideology into texts which audiences decode. Audiences are active in their interpretations and can accept/ reject the producers message.

Encoding and Decoding Music videos

The target audience will always have a preferred reading. They accept all messages and decode the text in the way that was intended. Usually the secondary audience will decode a negotiated reading  and parents/ audiences who hate the music genre will have an oppositional reading


                                              Rihanna - FourFiveSeconds

Preferred Reading: the target audience (massive fans) would think the music video really compliments the song

Negotiated Reading: the secondary audience may think the song is nice but don't understand the meaning of the video

Oppositional Reading:  parents would think the artist is dressed inappropriately with her low plunge top, so it causes us to focus on her sexuality rather than her talent



                                                         Iggy Azalea - Bounce

Preferred Reading: the target audience (massive fans) would think the style of the music video

Negotiated Reading: the secondary audience may like the video but don't understand how it correlates with the song

Oppositional Reading: parents would think that women are degraded to sexual objects with the provocative choice of clothing, bad influences on their children


                                                           Dolce & Gabbana
With certain campaigns encouraging consumers to buy the brand's product, this is how various audiences would react:

Preferred Reading: if you buy it you'd feel sexy whether you're a man or woman

Negotiated Reading: the viewer may like the perfume but doesn't like the brand's messages of feeling sexy

Oppositional Reading: the viewer doesn't like the perfume or the brand because it demoralises/ sexualises women (feminist view)

Editing to the Beat

Today we had to edit a video to the beat of the song we were given, in order to get a substantial amount of practice before editing our real music video. At first editing was challenging as I had to get used to Premiere Pro when editing a music video, I've only had experience in creating a thriller opening the previous year. After a while I got used to the task and it became easier for me to deal with. I learnt that editing to the beat is very important because the video has to be in-sync with the music, if not, it can look out of beat, poorly edited and rushed.