This blog includes the research performed for this project, written and conducted by Jason
The Unforgiven - Metallica
Media Languange
The video starts with an extreme long shot in black and white of a boy playing alone. This connotes loneliness and isolation. This theme is carried along the music video as all characters and band members are never shown together and are either alone in a large open space or a dark confined room. The choice of black and white dulls out all the colours and matches well with the song's dark mood and groove. As with typical of rock music videos of the era, the video is entirely made up of two components: the band playing the song and some form of b-roll footage that fits the meaning of the song. The actions that the characters were performing were slow and grinding as compared to reality, this may be used to connote struggle. In the beginning of the music video, the boy is still seen being free in the open space up until the midpoint of the video where it starts to depict him trying to escape the small confined room, this may be a symbol for aging from being a care-free child to a struggling teenager.
Representation
The music video represents aging in a negative way. The boy starts out free and ends as an old man trying to chip away at a concrete wall with a pen. This might be suggesting that aging restricts our freedom and causes us to struggle more in life. This view is typical for media products that are targeted towards teenagers as they show that you are free when you are younger in order to appeal more towards them. A convention for metal bands during this era is to represent the band as cool and masculine. The dark lighting creates silhouettes of their more masculine features (ie, tough faces, strong standing stances,) They are also filmed from slight below eye level to make them seem more tough and strong.
Audience
In this era, rock was dominated by colourful videos of boys with large hair, colourful lights, over-the-top costumes and lots of ladies. However, this video might appeal more to the counter-culture of the time. The dark colours, "masculine" men, and aggressive music. Their audience is likely to be entirely male as the entire cast is made up of males that are average looking. Making them able to connect more with men and less with women as they are not so good looking
Industry
The music video is very simple, only requiring the removal of colors for all the shots. There are no fancy VFX seen in the music video. The song ends with a fade, so the directors decided to end the video by fading to black along with the song, this may be more convenient for the era as the music video would be aired onto MTV, as it would cut down the video length while preserving the song. Nowadays, it is uploaded onto Youtube. As the music is fading out, they take the opportunity to to place clickable links to other Metallica videos
ETA - NewJeans
Ylva Dimberg, Ho Hyoung Lee, Beenzino, Hyun Ji Kim (2023) [Performed by NewJeans] on "NewJeans 2nd EP 'Get Up'"
This video is an advertisement, which would be very nice to do as I would get profit from A Level Media Studies. It has a narrative structure as a girl is falling in love with a boy in the music video and they are stalking them. The show that phones can be used to create professional music videos, which we may take inspiration for as we typically use gimbals which are large an inflexible. I like the large amounts of quick camera movement to switch between shots as it helps make the music video more smooth. Phones will be useful for these as they would be lighter to move around with, allowing us to make these shots. They also have a lot of scenes which are recorded through a phone which may be useful in appealing to a younger audience as they are more likely to be using phones as compared to older generations. Phone cameras also slightly dull out the colors which makes the video easier to look at and not too excessively colourful to the point where it connotes happiness.
don't miss me - Claire Rosinkranz
Claire Rosinkranz, Ragnar Rosinkranz, Presley Delano Regier, (2021) [Performed By Claire Rosinkranz] on "The Hating Game (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)"
This video has a lot of examples of possible b-roll footage mentioned from before that we can use if we were to make a music video with a band. The video is entirely filmed in a ratio from a past time and added with a dirty filter to make it seem more homemade or retro. If we were to pick an older song, this may be a technique that we may use to convey more emotions. The video contains only one character and repeats many scenes from the video. In a band setting, I think this should be avoided. I like the inclusion of bloopers and real audio from the b-roll footage as it may make the video seem more genuine to the fans
Breaking The Habit - Linkin Park
Joe Hahn, Robert G. Bourdon, Chester Bennington, David Farrel, Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson [Performed By Linkin Park] on "Meteora"
The music video is rather unique as it is fully animated. I like this animation style as subverts the convention of band music videos. Again there are more example of B-roll which we can use if we are going to make a music video with a band. However this style of animation seems difficult to execute for our current skill level. The animation allows them to create slightly exaggerated facial expressions and movements. In the case of highly emotional moments in songs, we can utilize animations using this method. The animation was made by a well known Japanese anime studio, this may be a method used by the band target an alternate audience of weaboos who may become interested because the music video may fit their identity. Because of this, they will consume this media for their diversion as seen in the Uses and Gratification theory by Blumer and Katz.
Terlambat Sudah - Poppy Mercury
A. S. Rachmat [Performed by Poppy Mercury] on "Terlambat Sudah"
One glaring feature of this music video is the inclusion of Karaoke-style lyrics on screen. I believe this may be done to allow easier distribution of the content to karaoke bars to earn greater royalty from these bars. Another possibility is so that audiences would have a better time remembering the song if it were aired on TV as lyrics would be clearly displayed for them to remember. We may take this into consideration when we are thinking of the distribution channels we are going to be using to distribute our project. Other than that, the music video is simple. Just some clips of singing/guitar solo on a thematic background + unrelated story-less b-roll footage to slap in every other cut. We could use the poor graphics and square ratio from this video to create an older feel for our music video as those features are often associated with an older era.
Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day
Billie Joe Armstrong, Frank E Wright III, Michael Pritchard [Performed by Green Day] on "American Idiot"
Media Language
The music video starts with a couple in the middle of a thick yellow flowers. Flowers are often connotated with ideals of love and the colour yellow with happiness. They talk of serious topics while in close-ups to bring the audience closer to the moment. This may be an example of Levi Strauss's binary opposites as it could be interpreted as Reality v Love. This further shown as her pleas for him to not leave her are broken when chooses to go the army. The song starts at 1:40 which subverts the conventions of music video to only include the duration of the music to an extreme. This may be done to show that there is greater focus on the video rather than the song. The song is then accompanied with slow motion clips of the couple going through their day. Slow motion may have been used to connote surrealism over a memory. The door slams open as the song drops in volume to bring the focus back onto the narrative. The cut back to the man on the porch was sudden and could be described as a snap back to reality. The song fully cuts out. There are noticeably less cuts in the video when the woman is crying, this may be representation on how conflicts often feel long and never ending when they happen. The director the uses cross cuts of the man preparing to go to war and the woman missing him back home. This may have been used to further connote the binary opposite of Love v Reality. The music video ends with a sound bite from an early part of the video to show irony of how the man has left hear in spite of her pleads
Representations
The music video represents the military as a place where love dies. Features such as cold faces, injuries, women and children in warzones, explosions and many others are seen in the music video in a way that is antagonising the military. This may have been done to tell people to not go to the military through cultivation theory as they learn that they will get hurt in the military. This could have been done in protest of real life events especially because of the post 9/11 war on terrorism in which the USA sends large amounts of conscripts abroad. However, there exists a negative reading of this text where younger children who have less understanding of war may be more enticed to join the military as explosions, bullets and armoured vehicles are often seen as cool things instead of the intended horror. This could be because of the representation of the military in other media products which are more common where they are the protagonist.
Audience
The audience of this music video may be young adults. This could be suggested by the choice to include the military conscription as the antagonist of the video. Realistically, younger adults are often the target of military conscription. Serious romantic relationships are also something which teenagers and children would fail to understand. It may be targeted towards both genders as both the man and the woman are seen to be worse off after the man's conscription, showing that both ends of the deal end up badly. This may have been done to make women to be more likely to restrict their loved ones form going to war. The music video is shown to antagonise the US military, we can identify this by the usage of the stereotyped aggressive drill sergeant, often seen in media representations of the US military. Hence we can probably predict that it was targeted towards those living in the USA
Industry
I do not think that this is good for money. The music video is unnecessarily long for TV airing as it will reduce time for advertisements. Nowadays, it has been uploaded onto Youtube for it to be viewed. The long format may actually be beneficial on Youtube as the algorithm identifies silent parts or breaks in chapters and may slap in advertisements in those opportunities, increasing income for the band. The music video may have also been used to gain public support for the band as they show that they are against war, a view commonly held by the average American during the Iraq war.
Reflection: This research on music videos gave me some simple ideas to fill up a music video. As this component usually longer than component 1, I was afraid that we would not have enough content to fill the entire music video. It also made me realise that music videos can have as much meaning as movie openings that we had during our AS Level Exams. We really have to put attention into detail in this project!
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