Music VideosIntroduction to A2

A2 Media StudiesWhere next?

AIM: To get an overview of the A2 course and apply a key theoretical perspective and terminology

The A2 course

• 50% coursework (G324: A2 Production)

• 50% examination (G325) questions based around your experience of

Production work; essay on Critical Perspectives in Media (‘theory

lessons’)

Overall

The weighting of units is: • 50% AS work (25% Production; 25% exam)• 50% A2 work (25% Production; 25% exam)

G324: A2 Advanced PortfolioYour particular brief:A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options (ancillary tasks):

• (a website homepage for the band);• a CD inlay for its release as part of a digipak

(CD/DVD package);• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD

package).

Practice work – Summer term

• Textual analyses of music videos and CD covers• Research into your chosen genre and artist• Re-creation task • History of the music video • Create a short music video (about a minute)• Create a CD cover and back cover• Create the homepage of a band website using Wix or

Weebly• Short evaluation• Plans for Y13

The bar was set high last year…

Liam Gilliver A2 Practice Piece

GECK

What is a music video?What are its purposes?

Write down a music video you can recommend to the rest of the group. Hand it in.

Try and pick one where you like the video not just the song.

We will use these next lesson.

First task: to be completed by next lesson

Set up your blogs for Y13. Write an introductory note about your brief.

Name (candidate number) A2 Media Studies Coursework.

Get blogging straight away; get a better mark next year! Remember – send a blank (or put a nice message) email to Mr Welch from the email address used to set up your blog.

What do we expect from certain genres of music videos?

INDIE?

METAL?

ROCK?

POP?

HIP HOP?

SOUL?

DANCE?

• Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics(e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

• There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

• There is a relationship between music and visuals(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

• The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

• There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

• There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

Goodwin’s music video analysisAndrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’

(Routledge 1992)

1st Textual Analysis – to be completed by _________

Complete a textual analysis of an iconic music video from before you were born (the next couple of lessons will be useful for this)

Analyse it using Goodwin’s conventions. Remember to comment on: - Camera shots, angles and movements- How the sound works with the images- Mise en scene- Editing

Can you find evidence of these? Is there anything that goes against these conventions?

Complete as a blog post with screen grabs from your chosen music video to illustrate your points

“There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).”

KEY TERM: Intertextuality – referencing or paying homage to another media text or event that is well known. This can be something that has influenced the band/video-maker, a point they wish to make, a pastiche of influences or a parody.

Released: 2003Director: Bryan Barber

Atlanta hip hop duo Outkast changed their style and sound for a crossover album. Based on The Beatles’ appearance at the Ed Sullivan Show – screaming, fainting fans and all – it sees the singer play every member of ‘The Love Below’.

Intertextuality/Parody: released around the time of the royal wedding

Marli Harwood (2011) (Dir: Destiny Ekaragha)

Sinead O’Connor ‘Nothing compares 2U’ (1989)

Janelle Monae ‘Cold War’ (2010)

Sinead O’Connor ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ and Janelle Monae ‘Cold War’.

Both share the ‘notion of looking’ and give the viewer an unavoidable intimacy with the artist.

Monae’s video is a good example of intertextuality. It pays homage to O’Connor’s and also parodies it at one point by making it feel like a video within a video. Monae plays a persona of an android who has to perform for human entertainment to earn her freedom. The tears gently parody O’Connor’s genuine tears when, during the shoot, she began to think of her mother who died in a car accident.

Your examples?

Hand in your music video recommendations.

Do any of them conform to Goodwin’s conventions? Any use of intertextuality?