Director Study
Spike Jonze
October 22, 1969
American
Director, Producer and Actor
Best known for directing the film ‘Where the wild things are’.
The first music video Spike produced was in 1992 and was called ‘High in high school’ by the Chainsaw Kittens.
In 2009 he was the director of the film ‘Where the wild things are’
He was the producer and appeared in Jackass 3D in 2011.
His latest piece of work was being the
director of the song ‘Otis’ By Kayne West
& Jay-Z
The first video Spike directed was ‘High in high school’ By the Chainsaw Kittens.
Pop Video Questionnaire
write up
I am a 18 year old female, who has an interest in the music genres; Pop, R'n'B and Indie. I have a few favourite artists or bands. But from the genre Indie i like The Wombats. My favourite music video isnt from The Wombats or the Indie genre. I quite like the video Eminem - Lose yourself as it tells a story and deals with social issues. I find this music video very entertaining as it has clips from his film 8mile, which the song was the soundtrack for.
In a music video i would probably prefer the club/bar setting or a house party. Simply because i feel a lot goes on at partys and in clubs therefore there is a lot to look at and a lot of different aspects to show for example, different lighting, outfits, genders and dancing.
The sort of characters i like to see in the music videos would be comical or unusal, i'd like to see more comical videos as it would make me laugh therefore its got my attention and keeps it. Also i like to see unusal characters as we are likely to think there a bit strange and continue to watch as we are interested in what the character is like.
I'd prefer a theatrical story line because the more drama that is caused then the more interested people are because they are looking forward to what happens next.
In a music video i'd expect to see choreographed dancing and lip syncing this is most likely because we are used to seeing them therefore we sort of expect it to happen in all music videos.
The new music video that i am interested in is, LMFAO - Party rock, in this video there is a lot of bright colours and fast cuts that keep up with the pace of the actual song. There are interesting characters in this video therefore i believe it keeps the audience interested throughout.
In a music video i would probably prefer the club/bar setting or a house party. Simply because i feel a lot goes on at partys and in clubs therefore there is a lot to look at and a lot of different aspects to show for example, different lighting, outfits, genders and dancing.
The sort of characters i like to see in the music videos would be comical or unusal, i'd like to see more comical videos as it would make me laugh therefore its got my attention and keeps it. Also i like to see unusal characters as we are likely to think there a bit strange and continue to watch as we are interested in what the character is like.
I'd prefer a theatrical story line because the more drama that is caused then the more interested people are because they are looking forward to what happens next.
In a music video i'd expect to see choreographed dancing and lip syncing this is most likely because we are used to seeing them therefore we sort of expect it to happen in all music videos.
The new music video that i am interested in is, LMFAO - Party rock, in this video there is a lot of bright colours and fast cuts that keep up with the pace of the actual song. There are interesting characters in this video therefore i believe it keeps the audience interested throughout.
Understanding the concept of genre and audience
Who would you like to do a music video for and why?
There are a few music videos i would of liked to produce a music video for, they are;
Eminem - Lose yourself
Girls Aloud - Promise
Nickleback - If today was your last day
Ed Sheeran - You need me
Oasis - Roll with it
Jessie J - Who's laughing now
I decided against these songs as i had much stronger ideas for the song i ended up choosing in the end. The reasons behind my choice is that i would of been breaking norms for that artist/band and it would go against what their fans wanted.
For example, Eminem - Lose yourself already has a very popular music video therefore it would be hard to try and differ from that.
My ideas for Jessie J whos laughing now was to have flashbacks of her past being bullied and now what she has done for herself. I think this would be too difficult as its finding the right people to do it and finding a child.
The most likely candiates are Ed Sheeran - you need me because his video for that is quite simple and i'd like to re create it but with a story line so his fans are interested in the video more. Another option was Roll with it by Oasis, I had very strong ideas for a storyline for this specific video.
However in the end i decided against them as the song i have chosen i had much stronger ideas and it fit in very well with the conventions and norms of what the artist has done already, however it differs from her normal videos.
Another video Spike Jonze directed was ‘Praise you’ by Fatboy Slim in 1998.
His latest music video was with Kayne West and Jay-Z called ‘Otis’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoEKWtgJQAU&feature=fvst
Semiotics: the study of signs and their meanigns according to Roland Barthes 'an image is denoted. It has connotations' these may differ according to our culture; similar to the reception theory.
This is technically just a shape, although the 'cross' shape is associated with many things i.e. God/Jesus/Religion. This shows how religion is a main part of modern society and a well known aspect with which the 'cross' shape is related to religion. However to some this may mean completly different as people who are completely against God and all religions associate themselves with an inverted cross (the cross simply turned upside down).
This image of a red rose is simply just a flower, although there are many connotations linked i.e.love/death/relationships.This is due to red roses playing a major role during valentines day and also being simbolic at funerals. Although some just linked this picture of the rose simply to colours that are seen.
This is simply just an abstract shape, although due to Hitler and the Germans, it is most commonly associated with World War II (the swatzstiker). Although previously, it was the 'peace' sign for Hindu's and Hitler took this sign and changed it slightly, where it then became an image associated with 'evil' and very offensive to many. Although, technically; as stated previously, this is just an abstract shape.
This again is just a shape, although it is well known as a 'star' shape, ironically an actual star is not this shape. This is just the well known name associated with this shape. This also has connotations of christmas/tattoo as many people have a 'star shaped' tattoo. Although many people thought of 'the star of david' when lookign at this image, although it is not specifically 'the star of david'.
By completing this task, it became clear that Barthes idea of semeotics is in fact true and very similar to 'the reception theory', the way in which you take in an image of sound is dependant on the type of person you are.
We also studied two music videos of very different genres.
Music video 1= Rancid - Time Bomb
Genre= Punk/Scar/Reggae
Connotations= Quite happy, upbeat music and attitudes, 'this is england' style (punk), band seem happy being who they are, more focused on the musica rather than fame, live in a rough area but still relatively happy.
Music video 2= Snoop Dog ft Justin Timberlake - Signs
Genre= RnB, Rap, Hip Hop, Pop
Connotations= Money, cars, girls, fame, boys in control, power, set in vegas 'city that never sleeps', party scene.
Andrew Goodwin's Theory
Andrew Goodwin has identified a number of key features in music videos. They are:
- A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
- A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
- Genre-related style and iconography present.
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
- Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
- Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.
- A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
- A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
- Genre-related style and iconography present.
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
- Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
- Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.
Many of these features are present in all music videos, depending on the genre of the song and the aim of the record company/artist
What makes a music genre.
Task: To watch four different music videos and choose one song to create a CD cover for.
Music Video 1: Fabolous - Body Ya (Rap, Hip Hop)
Rich, Materialistic, Shovanistic, Violent, Swearing, The 'desease' that he seems to have in the music video represents his power.
Music Video 2: Dance Hall Crashers - Enough (Pop, Soft Rock, Punk)
Old fashioned (clothing), a lot of instruments on show, happy people, bright colours, camera focuses on the instruments and singers, big crowd (moshpit).
Music Video 3: Dixie Chicks - Not ready to make nice (Country, Pop)
Connotations that she has 'dirt' on her hands, unhappy, angry, seems she is trying to 'get over' something/someone, black white and red.
Music Video 4: Josh Wink - -Higher state of consciousness (Dance, Electro, Trance)
not got a lot of money, fast pace editing, having fun in life, at a fair, on drugs?, no singing, focuses on the beat of the music.
Me and my partner chose to create a CD cover to The Dixie Chicks - Not ready to make nice. We decided to use black, white and red pictures as the music video seemed to be similar colours and have no 'storyline' to it like a lot of other music videos.
This is an example of a CD cover for the song - Not ready to make nice, by the Dixie Chicks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pojL_35QlSI
Above is the link to the song which we designed this CD cover for.
Analysing Media Campaigns
Here are some video clips for the music video Sweat by Snoop Dogg.
Also there are clips of women looking very sexual in minimum clothing. This will attract the male audiences. It represents women as being sexual objects which is the same as the CD cover.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pojL_35QlSI
Above is the link to the song which we designed this CD cover for.
Analysing Media Campaigns
This is the cover for the single Sweat by Snoop Dogg.
The CD cover shows the main artist looking smart in his black
and white suite this shows us that he is the main person.
Snoop Doggis wearing sun glasses, this makes us think he is
very cool and it is very common that the artist will
wear shades in this genre.
The women on this CD cover is seen as sexual object, they dont
show us her face which may be seen as disrespectful, however
they dont want to show her face as the attention may be taken away from the artist himself. This particular CD cover from Snoop Dogg hasnt really challanged any conventions of hip hop as it is similar to a lot of others from this particular genre.
The video promotes the song very well as it does exactly what the CD cover signals.
The artist is made to look very cool and slick. They make him look this way by girls falling all over him whilst walking through a party, also the sunglasses and the white and black jacket help to make him look cool.
Also there are clips of women looking very sexual in minimum clothing. This will attract the male audiences. It represents women as being sexual objects which is the same as the CD cover.
During the video there are clips of the artist singing in a room by himself not looking as cool and hip as he was previously. This shows the audience its not always about the shades are the glam and the gangster look all the time.
The mise en scene elements help the audience determine what genre this is, the shades, gold chains, fancy cars, money and sexy girls tell us that it is from the genre of hip hop, therefore it has followed many conventions.
This is Snoop Dogg talking on a talk show about his new single Sweat coming out.
Here the artist is helping to market his product.
He is being interviewed on talk show about his new single sweat. By talking to him about single it would make people want to go out and buy it.
If they didn’t previously like the artist this may change their perspective and help him gain more publicity.
In the interview he is wearing shades which he is in his video and on the CD cover, therefore the public straight away know about the artist and the kind of genre he is representing.
This is the CD cover for the single Techno Fan by The Wombats.
The CD cover represents techno very well however they are an indie band and it is very much an indie song.
The song is about liking techno music therefore the element of the colours used is a representation of techno being very loud hence the bright colours.
The CD cover doesn’t really represent the indie band The Wombats very well as it goes against all conventions and stereotypes of being Indie.
Here are some clips from the video of The Wombats – Techno Fan.
These represent the genre Indie very well as they follow the conventions and stereotypes. In most Indie videos they often show mise en scene elements of instruments involved. This is so the audience get an idea of what goes into the song.
They also use a lot of close ups of the artist on his face this is so the audience get an idea of what The Wombats are like also it shows what genre they are representing.
The video markets the single and the band very well, because it follows the conventions and the stereotypes made by the public, therefore because they are similar they will attract the same publicity again and again.
This video doesn’t really stand out against others from this genre as they have followed many of the conventions and are quite similar however if they were to challenge the conventions it may attract more audiences.
This is The Wombats website and them promoting the new single Techno Fan. It tells the public that the single is out now and available to buy and download from iTunes and the official Wombats web store. This helps promote the single as regular fans checking the website will see this and immediately want to download the single.
This campaign would only be successful for those who visit The Wombats website often enough to realise they have a new single out.
This is the album cover for Alexandra Stan – Mr Saxobeat.
The CD cover represents the single very well. The Single is very much dance and therefore it has been represented with this pattern.
The artist is portrayed as being very pretty with only really eye make up on. This shows that its very real and women are not seen as being fake or used sexually like other genres use them.
This CD cover has targeted its audience by following the bold title a pattern and just the artist this is what most dance/club music videos do.
These clips are from the video Mr Saxobeat by Alexandra Stan.
The music video is different from other dance/club music. A lot of videos from this genre show dancing in clubs with lots of bright colours and short cuts in between clips. Therefore the artist has attempted to be different by creating a storyline for her music video instead of the same thing.
The traditional forms used are the female being very pretty and men falling at her feet. She seems to be the dominant of all which in most music videos of this genre are dominated by one sex.
This video stands out against others from this genre as it has not always followed the conventions of dance/club music, by challenging the conventions it may attract more audiences as they could be bored of similar dance/club music videos.
This is Mr Saxobeat being distributed on iTunes. This is also a way or marketing her product as when people are on iTunes looking for new music they will come across her song and want to download it if they like it. It is very traditional as everyone's music is available on iTunes.
Concepts
What sort of artists will it be like for my video?
* Adele
* Maroon 5
* Jessie J
* Kate Nash
* Leona Lewis
What type of Characters?
* Love
* Romantic
* Comedy
* Families
What sort of costumes?
* Dress up
* Animals
* Everyday
What sort of colours will there be?
* Black and White
* Bright
* Original Footage
Will lyrics show up?
* Yes
* No
Will random pictures show up ?
* Yes
* No
What type if locations?
* House
* School
* Beach
* Town
* Open field
Am i going to fit the video to the lyrics?
* Yes
* No
Star Analysis
Justin Bieber
About him
Justin Bieber is a 17 year old Canadian singer-songwriter. Most of his music produced is Pop/RnB. Justin was discovered in 2007 over YouTube by Scooter Braun whom is now Justin’s manager. Justin posted dozens of homemade videos on this website with him racking up 10,000,000 views. Braun took Justin to meet Usher and he was impressed therefore Justin was signed by RBMG which is a joint venture between Usher and Braun. Later on, Justin was then signed by Island record label. Justin’s first single was ‘One time’ which was released in 2009 and made it into the top 10 chart in home country Canada
One Time
One time was Justin’s debut single. It caught the public’s attention as he is very young and is in a flash house playing video games. The song it catchy therefore will stick with the public. We are able to tell the age group that this is artist/video is aimed at. We can tell this by the age of the people in video.
It is aimed at girls as he’s seen to have everything therefore this is what attracts them to him.
The dance video follows the conventions of a solo artist’s music video, as it has a dance routine which is common in a lot of solo artist’s videos. There are a wide range of close up’s of the artist so we can tell he is the main subject and important. The video starts off with a narrative, and then leads into the video with the artist lip syncing which is a main convention of pop.
Bieber & Ludacris
This is the song/video when people started to realize Justin was going to be a huge star. Their first song together was called ‘Baby’, Because Justin had started to perform with top stars, and people would realize he is going somewhere, although Usher did feature in his first video ‘One Time’.
The video to ‘Baby’ has a narrative of him trying to win a girls heart.
It follows all the conventions of pop videos with a dance routine which is shown between clips of the narrative. It also has fast cuts to keep up with the beat of the music including close up’s of the artist so we know he is the main subject of the narrative and it’s about him.
This video differs from the first as it’s not as flash. He doesn’t seem to be showing off, he is seen as a normal teenage boy hanging out at a bowling alley whereas in his first video ‘One Time’ he is seen to be showing off his cash and what he can do know he knows big named stars.
This video is more realistic for a teenage boy.
He captures his audience by keeping to what is selling in that genre.
Pray
This video is very different to others by Justin Bieber. The song was written by Justin, the song is about several European countries that are struggling. The video starts of with various shots of different people struggling with living facilities. This differs from the videos we’d expect to see from Justin. This doesn’t really have a narrative however it does relate well to what the song is telling us. The shots between each clip are longer this is to fit in well with the type of music as it’s not a fast paced song.
Overall this video is very different to what we’d expect to see from Justin. This is good as he is not frightened to challenge conventions to widen his fan base.
Intertexuality in Music Videos
Intertexuality is the concept that no art of writing is unique in and of itself and instead is shaped by a number of other creative sources, thereby adding to the accumulated context of all the creations. Intertexuality can also imply the reinvention of a creation based on itself or on other creations, adding further levels of meaning among all of them.
This music video represents a short story of lots of men falling in love with this sexy blonde however one man in particular tries to win her over by buying her expensive gifts. This is more likely to have the audience engaged as the time it was released there was very few like this.
The music video ‘Material Girl’ was produced by Nile Rodgers in 1985 and was based around international superstar Marilyn Monroe. The song has appeared in films such as Bridget Jones Diary; Edge of reason and Moulin Rouge.
Madonna explained that the concept of the song was similar to her life and the situations she was going through at that time. According to Madonna the song was provocative; hence she was attracted to it.
In the music video we can identify greed with Madonna asking for a rich and luxury life in favour of romance and long relationships. Both old and new critics have suggested that this video was the making of Madonna and which really helped her in becoming an icon.
The Music video was an impersonation of Marilyn Monroe’s performance of ‘Diamonds Are Girl’s Best Friend’ from the 1953 film Gentlemen prefers blondes.
The scenes that have been mimicked are the ones of which a Hollywood director is attempting to win the heart of an actress, in this video it would be Madonna herself. However in conflict to her lyrics in the video Madonna is seen to be unimpressed with the rich director falling over her by buying her expensive gifts. Therefore he pretended to be penniless and succeeded in winning her heart, we can see this at the end of the video.
Discovering that, conflicting to her song, the young woman was not impressed by money and expensive gifts, he pretended to be penniless and succeeded in taking her out on a date. Researchers noted the symbolically of the video and assumed it as a medium for promoting Madonna's image. She has performed the song in four of her world tours, most of them being mimicry of the song and the video.
The song ‘Material Girl’ has been covered by many artists including popular ones such as Britney Spears, The Chipettes and Hilary Duff.
Madonna has often remarked that she regrets recording "Material Girl" as the name became a pseudonym for her in mainstream media. The song has been labeled an empowering influence for women, and was the subject of some debate.
