Anamatic

3 initial ideas in relation to narrative of video/ film etc

Conventions of form and genre

Theories

Tim’s Theorists

Tim O’Sullivan argues that all media texts tell us some kind of story. Through careful mediation media texts offer a way of telling stories. ‘The story of us is as a culture or set of cultures.’

Kate Domaillie stated that every story ever told can be filtered into one of eight narrative types. Each of these narrative types has a source; an original story on which others are based. These stories are as follows: Candide, Cinderella, Love, Circe, Faust, Orpheus, Romeo and Juliet and Tristen and Iseult. Without love, there would not be us; love is the ultimate narrative.

Sven Carlson (1999) suggested that music videos in general videos fall into two rough categories: performance or conceptual clips.
Performance contains filming from live performances.

Bordwell and Thompson (1997) deterred the difference between story and plot.
Structure of narrative:

·       Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution.

·       High degree of narrative closure

·       A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and temporal coherence.

Equilibrium of Diagesis: Todorov (1977)

Claude Lèvi-Strauss (1958) had ideas about narrative amount to the fact that he believed all stones operated to certain clear Binary Opposites e.g. good vs evil

Binary Opposites – mise-en-scene

Protagonist	Antagonist
Colour
Location
Country	Urban

Michael Shore (1984) argues that music videos are recycled styles.
For recycled styles look at Buddy Holly by Wheezer (1984).

·       Happy Days was released in 1970 but was set in 1950’s America

·       Used original footage from Happy Days

·       Our understanding of this look is based purely and simply on other media products.

·       Look is more important than meaning (surface without substance)

Becky’s Theorists

Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze Theory
Looks at how the audience view women who are presented in the media. She states that women are there to be seen and that the use of the camera portrays them as sexual objects through shot types and movement.

1.    How men look at women

2.    How women look at themselves

3.    How women look at other women

Mulvey focuses on:

·       Emphasising curves of the female body

·       Referring to women as objects rather than people

·       This display of women is how men think they should be perceived

·       Female viewers view the content through the eye of a man

·       Women are often sexualised as objects and viewed based on sexual desire and the way they look

Richard Dyer’s Star Theory
Star Theory is the idea that icons and celebrities are constructed by institutions for financial reasons and are built to target a specific audience or group of people. Dyer’s theory can be broken down into three sections:

1.    Audience and institutions – Stars are made to make money for that purpose alone. Audiences want to consume what they think is the ideal. The institution then modifies the stars image around that target audience. They make a star on what they think the audience want.

2.    Construction – The star is built for an audience and is not an actual person; a persona is created for the audience to identify and so stars can differentiate between different stars and why they like them or not. The star is built specifically with someone’s signature.

3.    Hegemony (cultural beliefs) – Leadership or dominance especially by one step or social group over them. We relate to the star because they have a feature that we admire or share with them. This develops form an admiration into an idolization.

Quotes from Richard Dyer
“A star is an image not a real person that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials e.g. advertising, magazines as well as films and music.” (1979)
“Stars are commodities that are produced by institutions”
“A star is a constructed image, represented across a range of media and mediums”
“Stars represent and embody certain ideologies”

Tessa Perkins – Stereotypes
Stereotyping is not a simple process and contains a number of assumptions that can be challenged.

1.    Stereotypes are not always negative – ‘youths’

2.    They are not always about minority groups or less powerful

3.    They can be held about ones groups

4.    They are not rigid or changing – they are difficult to change and take a long time to change

5.    They are not always false – where else would stereotypes come from?

Implications of stereotypes – usually we’re wrong because we base our stereotypes on people we have never experienced.

Hypodermic needle Theory
Hypodermic needle theory is the idea that messages are directly injected to passive audiences through the use of media, such as radio and television. The theory was created in the 20's and has since then been outdated and has been found to have many flaws such as;

• Very out of date and invalid
• Not all people consume media in the same way 
• Not everyone watches the news/consumes media in the same way
• Audiences are not simply passive, more up to date theories have proved this

Treatment

Treatment

·       the song is about drugs and past life experiences

·       I will have one actor lip syncing the lyrics; he will look rock/punk and will stay in the same costume throughout.

·       Two others who are performing with guitars in their own shots.

·       I will be filming in an urban location, such as Hull, queen’s gardens, under a bridge, for example down Humber Street.

·       Long shots of the actor in different locations lip syncing also dancing.

·       When the song hits the chorus, the mood and colour of the video will be brighter and the actor will act happy and dance

·       I want the video to have a psychedelic look with a wide use of different colours, including pinks, purples and blues.

·        The actor will be seen reminiscing of the past with flashbacks, these flashbacks will be of him in dull areas, with little or no use of colour and then we will see him in the present as he lip syncs, happy and more alive.

3x Textual analysis of videos (applying LIIAR) in depth as possible

Radiohead - Street Spirit

Language: 

The mise en scene within this music video is very dark, all the costumes are dark/black and the setting of the video is also inconvenient and suspicious as it looks like a caravan park. The editing, mostly slow motion has been placed very well with the pace of the song, as the song is slow and almost makes the audience feel depressed or upset. The video is irrelevant to the lyrics of the song, it's almost random but Radiohead wanted it to just be aesthetically pleasing for the audience. There are a lot of long shots of the band and in slow motion while the lead singer, Thom Yorke is lip syncing and performing in real time. 

Institution:

Radiohead is an English rock band from Oxbridge, who formed in 1985 and consists of 5 members. Radiohead are associated with the labels; XL, Ticker Tape LTD, Hostess, TBD, Parlophone, Capitol. 

Their first massive and successful hit was their debut single 'creep' which initially didn't hit the top charts when first released but several months after it's release it became very popular in the country. Radiohead have sold more than 30 million records worldwide, they have also been voted the best band of the 2000s. 

Ideology:

This music video is from Radiohead's album 'The Bends' released in 1995, Thom Yorke the lead singer has described the video and it's lyrics as "one of their most saddest songs" and that it's "the dark tunnel without the light at the end". Yorke has suggested that the song was inspired by the 1991 novel 'The Famished road' and that it's music was inspired by the american alternative rock band R.E.M. I personally think that the band wanted to create a great video that had no relevance to the lyrics of the song, but make a music video that would greatly go with the mood of the lyrics and make the audience relate to the feelings being portrayed. 

Audience:

The target audience for this music video was teens, mainly 16 and over and young adults, we can clearly tell this through the use of colour and mood of the song and the video, we wouldn't expect a child of a pensioner to watch this type of video and also teenagers are more prone to watch these sorts of videos. 

Representation:

This music video is meant to represent the mood and atmosphere of the song, as before Yorke stated that this was one of their most saddest, depressing songs to date, therefore they created a video and used conventions that would go greatly with the lyrics. Conventions of slow, sad songs that they used were; no use of colour, slow motion, performance and random events within the video that do not relate to the lyrics.

Metallica - Enter Sandman

Language: 

 Within the music video the mise en scene is very dark, almost scary, they have made this video in relation to the genre and the lyrics of the song. The 'Sandman' is someone who visits you in your dreams, they have presented the boys dreams by the use of fade and flash, nearly every scene of the music video is done in this way to try and scare the audience. 

Institution:

Metallica are an American band formed in 1981, the band consists of 4 members. Metallica are associated with the record labels; Megaforce, Elektra, Warner Bros., Vertigo/Virgin EMI/Universal, Blackened. Their first massive hit was 'Hit the Lights', this song was great for their promotion as they were a new band at the time and got the recognized by their target audience, late teens.

Ideology:

This single was released as part of their 5th album, 'Metallica', the single is meant to be a strong representation of a child's nightmares, The plot of the music video directly relates to the theme of the song, combining images of a child having nightmares and images of an old man with shots of the band playing the song, The child dreams that he is drowning, falling from the top of a building, covered in snakes, being chased by a truck and finally falling from a mountain while escaping the truck. During the part of the song in which the child recites a prayer, he is being watched by the Sandman. Throughout the video, the picture flickers continuously.

Audience:

The target audience for this music video and song was for late teens, possibly early teens as well. Metallica played a big part in the movement of metal throughout America, we can clearly tell this through the use of instruments and the choice of lyrics, we wouldn't expect someone over the age of 40 to listen to or watch a music video like this. 

Representation:

Although the music video and lyrics coincide, the song was mainly created to be listened to without the music video, as you get different emotions/feelings from them both, this song is mainly made to represent the innocence of a child and vulnerability. It's also made to dance to and 'mosh' to, as it releases a great amount of adrenaline when listened to whilst being surrounded by other people in one area dancing. however you can listen to this song on your own, this will release the feelings of you wanting to dance or even 'headbang'.

                                            Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under the bridge

Language:

The mise en scene within this video includes a wide variety of colours within, especially when the song song hits the chorus, it has a medium close up shot of the lead singer Anthony Kiedis, surrounded by clouds and different colours, ranging from greens, blues, pinks and purples, this is done to represent happiness or even a drug induced feeling. throughout the video Kiedis is topless, compared to the other band members, such as flea at the start of the music video who is wearing mainly winter clothing e.g. a woolly hat. the song includes a lot of performance. The music video includes a medium close up of Kiedis walking down a street, which comes across as if it wasn't rehearsed as he starts singing to some shop owners and the seem confused. There is a huge amount of editing within this video, mainly fades, colour techniques. 

Institution:

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are an American band, formed in L.A in 1983. The band consists of four members who were introduced through one another. The band who are mainly Funk Rock are associated with the record labels; EMI and Warner Bros. The bands first massive single hit was 'Under the Bridge', the single went on to become number 2 in The United States and has gone on to sell more than seven million copies worldwide. 

Ideology:

This song is about the lead singers past drug abuse earlier on in his life, Kiedis and another band member Hilel Slovak were heavily addicted to Heroin and eventually Slovak died of a Heroin overdose, this is the inspiration for this song. Kiedis used to go under a bridge in downtown L.A and purchase Heroin from gangs who would provide the service under a bride, Kiedis has stated that even through he felt depressed when writing this song he stated that he would never resort back to drugs and that the line 'take me to the place i love, take me all the way' is where his friends, family and band is. 

Audience:

The target audience for this video and song is teens, late teens and anyone who has suffered drug abuse. this is due to the lyrics, however can be targeted to u=younger audiences who may not understand the lyrics but may like the sound of the song and the video comes across bright and happy representing youth. 

Representation:

The video is meant to represent Kiedis' love for the city Los Angeles, as he walks through it talking to locals, 

History of Medium

The history of Music videos has only been recent, as the first ever music video for a song and not just for a movie is classed as Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in 1975, however there has been arguments towards this as others state that Bob Dylan’s 'Don't look back', which was filmed in 1965 but yet released in 1967. The video included Bob Dylan standing in front of the camera to the right of the screen in a long shot, in the background we see the back of a hotel in black and white. He is holding some placard cards with the lyrics of his song and he is showing them in time with the lyrics, which are being sung over the top, it is a very simple music video. Queen's music video for 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was very innovative for the time of its release as no one had seen anything like it in the past, the video only cost £4,500 to make and took only 4 hours, Queen released the audio version before the released the video and was already a hit but not as big as they wanted it to be, so they decided to release the song along with a video, this was a huge success for the group and they managed to sell over 1 million copies by the end of January.




One of the most popular and famous music videos of all time is Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' 1983, which lasted 13 minutes 42 seconds, making it the longest music video in history. It's the most successful music video as it has sold over 9 million copies as of 2006 since its release. The video cost $500,000 to produce. When the video was released it was put on television nationally and replaced every show on television for 13 minutes, this was a brilliant way to advertise his brand new single and its new music video.



In August of 1981 a new television channel was added to American TV sets called MTV 'Music Television', this channel was specifically made to promote and show music videos. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by television personalities known as "video jockeys," or VJs. In its early years, MTV's main target demographic were young adults, but today, MTV's programming is primarily targeted at adolescents and teenagers. MTV has spawned numerous sister channels in the U.S. and affiliated channels internationally, some of which have gone independent. MTV's influence on its audience, including issues related to censorship and social activism, has been a subject of debate for years. As of August 2013, approximately 97,654,000 American households (85.51% of households with television) receive MTV.

Before the introduction of a single music video on it's own, many music videos were shot for films, this mainly happened during the 50s/60s. For example Elvis Presley's ‘Jailhouse Rock’ video was a scene shot for his musical drama film 'Jailhouse Rock' (1957),  The single was released in April of 1957 and was a number one hit in the U.S for 7 weeks, then in October of 1957 the original movie was released and included the music video for Jailhouse Rock. Other Artists who have managed to do the same as Presley was the Beatles 'A Hard Day's Night' (1964), The single was released just a few days after the film, however the song is featured in the film right at the beginning and has a video to accompany it, of the four Beatles trying to escape from the horde of young girls who are chasing them. This was a recurring thing with the Beatles and Elvis, they would release a movie with at least six songs within each, and then later or earlier than the release of the film they would release them as singles and later make albums from the movies.