Goodwin's & Laura Mulvey's Analsis Of Music

Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin has stated in his theory that there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating the lyrics, as well as mentioning that there is also a relationship between the music and the visuals. In his theory it is also mentioned that record companies mostly demand a lot of close-ups of the main artist or bands. He also stated that voyeurism is present in many music videos, and lastly that there are likely references to intertextuality.

How its going to apply to our video.

Our video will show characteristics from "Pop" genre, since the music itself falls under the Pop genre. There would be relationship between the lyrics and the visuals at different intervals, however it can't be seen the whole way through. Since we are planning to shoot the video in a night club (majority of it) i think that there will be a relationship seen between the music and the visuals, since the song is a very fast beat type. The editing will also be fast paced to keep up to speed with the visuals and the music. We are not sure whether we are going to show voyeurism of the female body in our video, however there are ideas. We haven't thought about using any intertextual references yet.

Laura Mulvey's Theory

Laura Mulvey came out with a theory called the "Male Gaze", which basically is when the audiences are put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. Her theory also stated that sexism didn't only exist in texts, but also on the way they were presented.

She came out with three "looks" that occur in films to serve to sexually objectify women.

1. The first "look" is how a male perceives a female character.

2. The second "look" is how a spectator feels seeing the female character on screen.

3. The third "look" combines the first and second "look", and allows the male target audiences to take the female character as their own personal sex object, due to the fact that they can relate themselves to the male character, whom they believe they re looking through.

How its going to apply to our video.

We are going to have a male character, whom is a flirty, player type therefore the male audiences can relate themselves to the male character, since the location is mostly set in a night club, the target audiences can relate it to themselves and feel as if they are with the rest of the cast.

Intertextuality In Music Videos

Intertextuality is when one type of media refers to another type of media. Music videos borrow ideas from other music videos, movies or video games.

For example Shania Twain's "Man I Feel Like a Woman", she borrowed ideas from Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love". This type of intertextuality uses other music videos to get their ideas from. There are occasions when music artists use scenes from movies, to apply in their music videos. For instance in Madonna's "Material Girl", she has used ideas from the movie "Gentlemen Prefer Blond"- the dance sequences, and has applied the same idea to her music video, with identical costumes and props. Another way of showing intertextuality is by grabbing ideas from video games- The Red Hot Chilli Peppers's "Californication" uses ideas from the video game "Grand Theft Auto" due to the fact that the audiences (like myself), think that the band members are controlling the scenes on the visual. An advantage of using ideas from video games is that it can attract interests from young generations, since they are mostly involved with gaming.

List of people involved

These are the people I am going to work with for our music video, including myself. We wanted to work together due to fact that us 3 (Daniel, Ashley and I) were in the same tutor groups since year 7, and we know each others well, and also we are really comfortable working with one another. Syed joined us in year 9, and has already made very huge impact to the group, with his ideas.

1.Ashley

2.Daniel

3.Rakulan

4.Syed

Analysing Digipaks

Jessie J- Who You Are (2011)

Jessie's album cover for 'Who You Are' is an example of an album which is very strong and effective- because it focuses mainly on the artists facial expressions and appearances. They have also used very effective colours like black and gold for the title. The gold writing for the title gives a thought that this album is very precious and priceless. It also gives the artist a "gangsta" look since her facial expressions don't show a smile or a sense of joy, instead it brings a type of "scary" feeling as you get when you see teenagers wearing hoodies. The gold writing also gives it a RnB style look due to the fact that it is gold plated. I will take these features into account, but we might not use style of the album title since our video song falls under the POP genre.

Katy Perry- One of the Boys (2008)

Katy Perry's album cover for "One of the Boys" is sexually shown, therefore it would catch the audiences eyes in the high street. She is showing her figure- which will attract the muscular side of the sex. The cover uses feminine colours of bright pink and baby blue- which symbolizes that this album's main audiences are females. They have used a long shot to allow the audiences to see her surroundings- which are also very feminine e.g. flowers etc. The title of the album is written in an "joyful" way which kind of brings a environment with happiness, unlike the one above. We will certainly use this idea, since it falls under the same genre as ours.

3 Main Categories Of Music Videos

Performance Based Video

These are a type of music videos which feature the artist/band/group performing the song through most of the video. It’s the type you would choose if you were under a low budget, like us for example. A good example of this is would be "Grenade" by Bruno Mars since he appears through out the video.

Narrative Based Video

This type of music category tries to tell a story through the video. Usually involving the artists themselves or maybe even other characters. The story is sometimes linked with the lyrics of the song, but there are exceptions. These type of music videos tends to be shown in a song which may have appeared in a movie, which can be easily realized. A good example of this is "Rio" song by Taio Cruz

Concept Based Video

This type of music category is based on a particular concept or idea. These types of videos are seen as unusual due to the fact that they have used a particular editing or filming technique.

Questionnaires For Music Video

Questionnaire

1. Male [ ] Female [ ]

2. Age: Under 18 [ ] 18-25 [ ] 26-35 [ ] 36-40 [ ] Over 40 [ ]

3. Do you prefer music videos that include special effects/animations?Yes [ ] No [ ]

Why?

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4. What aspects of a music video make it more interesting for you to watch?

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5. Do you like to see dance routines?Yes [ ] No [ ]

6. What’s your favourite music video?

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Why?

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7. What’s your least favourite music video?

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Why?
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Letter to Music Company

To Play and Win Studio,


For our A2 Media project we are considering using Inna’s song ‘Sun is Up’ as you are the relevant copyright holder and hold the rights to Inna’s material we are requesting your permission to use the album version of the song in our final piece. The title ‘Sun is Up’ and the name will also be used on our adverts and digipaks but they will not be used for promotional purposes or monetary gain and will simply be used as a piece of non-profit work.

The music video won't be released or be sold in any way, shape or form. The music video will only be seen by the OCR Exam Board and anyone in my media class but no one outside this circle.

Yours Sincerely,

Rakulan Sivapalan, Ashley Groom, Daniel H, Syed Ali-Shah