Visual Image Moodboard

Theories

   Richard Dyer - Star Theory

Celebrities and stars are 'make belief' images of what people see as a celebrity.

Dyer states that 'stars are commodities that are produced by institutions' and that 'a star is a constructed image, represented across a range of media and mediums' and finally that 'stars represent and embody certain ideologies' 

Bulmer & Katz - Audience Theory

uses and gratifications, the model has represented a change in thinking as researchers begin to describe the effects if the media from the point of view of the audience.

 but how can the media influence you when you choose what you watch.

The model looks at the motives of the people who use the media, asking why we watch the television programmes that we do.

The model asks us how we use the media.

Broken down into different needs:

-Surveillance

-Personal identity

-Personal relationships

-Diversion

Surveillance:

People feel better having the feeling that they know what is going on in the world around them.

Personal Identity:

Personal identity needs explains how being a subject of the media allows us to confirm the identity and positioning of ourselves within society

Personal Relationships:

This section comes in two parts, relationships with the media and using the media within relationships, like if you find a common interest with people the chances are it is going to be a piece of media.

Diversion:

we use the media as a type of escapism, we distract ourselves from the problems that we are facing, for example it is going to make us feel better knowing that the people on Television are going through the same problems that we are ourselves giving us a false sense of security and feeling that we are not on our own.

Tessa Perkins - Stereotypes

Stereotypes are not as simple as suggested

Tessa Perkins identifies 5 such assumptions

-stereotypes are not always negative

-they are not always about minority groups

-they can be held about ones own group

-they are not rigid or unchanging

-they are not always false.

people assumed that stereotypes are aimed and targeted towards the less powerful, but this is not always the case one example of how is that footballers are seen to have more money then sense .

Laura Mulvey - Male Gaze

How women are represented in the media, they are portrayed as sexual objects through cinematography. Mulvey then looked at how men look at women and then looked at how women looked at themselves in relation to the male gaze theory, and then how women look at each other in the media. She also suggests that women are there to please men 'seen but not heard' 

The male gaze focuses on:

-emphasis on the curves of the female body

-referring to women as objects rather than people

-the way women are displayed is how men think that they should be perceived

-female viewers will view the content through the eyes of a man

-women are often sexualised and seen as objects 

describes how the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual male.

Music videos:

-Emphasis on curves of the female body

-show how women are objects rather than people

-displays women in a  way to please men.

examples:

Calvin Harris - Blame - yes, focuses on the bum and legs and the women are seen to look like an accessory of the males

Prayer in C - yes, there are two girls kissing and the cinematography shows.

Im not the only one - yes, proved in points focuses on the woman rather than the man.

In Mulvey's male gaze theory women are seen as sexual objects, this can be seen in the music videos that we have watched as in all of them the cinematography focuses on the woman's sexual parts and the costumes are chosen to please the heterosexual male audience, this is done by having the women wear very little, or wearing something that is revealing to please the man. 

Treatment

Narrative Structure following the basic story of the lyrics, the artist is chasing a girl. Visual representations of the lyrics on screen. Using varied locations to portray the emotions of the song, and then perhaps add some flashbacks where they are necessary and add some visual effects to accompany it

History of the media

1926–1959: Talkies, soundies, and shorts

In 1926 with the arrival of talking pictures or 'Talkies' many musical films were produced and they featured popular artists and bands of the time. An animation artist called Max Fleischer introduced screen songs, which were a series of short cartoons with a bouncing ball bouncing over the words to a song so that the audience could sing along in time with the song this is similar to the modern day karaoke machine. In the early 30's cartoons usually featured popular musicians in their own short live action sequences where they would promote their songs. In 1940 to 1947 there was a phase called 'soundies' these were musical films that usually included dance routines to them, similar to music videos now.

1950s: Early music clips

Tony Bennett states in his autobiography that he had created the first music video when he was filmed in Hyde Park walking along the serpentine which was later used as a video for his song Stranger in paradise. In 1957 Elvis Presley's song jailhouse rock became the second music video. The first abstract music video is seen to be 'Daime si do bytu' or Lets get to the apartment which was created in 1958 and directed by Ladislav Rychman. 

Bob Dylan

In 1966 Dylan released a monochrome video clip for the song Subterranean Homesick Blues which was filked by D. A. Pennebaker and was featured in his documentary of Dylan called 'Dont look back' which was avoiding any attempt to show performance or a narrative, the video focuses on Dylan who s stood in the back of a darke alleyway and is silently shuffling large cue cards which had the key lyrics to the song. Many of the main artists at the time created short videos so they could be played if they were un able to appear on live television. 

The Beatles

In 1965 The Beatles had reached worldwide fame and they could no appear on all of the shows which they would have liked too or had been invited too.they also found that when appearing on these shows became to repetitive and that interrupted with the freedom and creativity which they enjoyed so much with studio recordings.


In November 1965 they produced a series of short films to promote themselves and they sent them out to all of the television shows which they could not make it too. these films where made with a sense of humor and fun so they could show their fans what they are really like.



In 1966 The Beatles made additional promotional films for songs such as paperback writer and the less popular 'Rain' they were both filmed in colour and in black and white, as america had been using colour T.V. since the 50's and European countries were still in the very early stages, for instance Britain's first colour broadcast came in 1967



in 1967 The Beatles filmed promo films for two songs and for the first time both films had no performance of the song and just used the feel of the song to storyboard the action. The Beatles made a small album for T.V. called the Magical Mystery Tour, and was regarded as the closest thing to a feature length music video, it combined the loose plotting of their films and the randomness of their promos, it was broadcast on boxing day 1967 and was heavily criticized by many people and critics.

Queen

The Music video is considered to have been born on top of the pops in 1975 when Queen where unavailable to appear on on the show because they were on tour so they filmed a music video for the programme to show.

MTV

MTV was launched on august 1st 1981 The channel is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, and is owned by Viacom Inc. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos, these were guided by people known as video jokey's or (VJ's). They would record intro's and outro's to every musc video These intros and outros would appear to air "live" and debut across the MTV program schedule 24 hours a day, seven days a week, though they were pre-taped within a regular work week at MTV's studios.

Audience Research

I sent some surveys around and here are the results 

Number of Participants: 50


1) Age?

13-17 - 43
18-20 - 4
20+ - 3

2) Gender?

Male - 32
Female - 18

3) Music Genre?

POP - 23
Rap - 9
Metal - 3
Indie - 10
Rock - 5

4) Do you prefer Abstract, Narrative or Performance Based Music Videos?

Narrative - 30
Abstract - 13
Performance - 7

5) Would you like to see lip syncing in the video?

Yes - 50
No - 0

6) Is the Music Video as important as the song?

Yes - 41
No - 9

3 Initial Ideas

My first Idea is an idea which follows the lyrics of the song and has them displayed on screen creating a visual representation of the song on screen and turning it into the things that the song reminds me of.

My second Idea is to create an abstract piece about an artist spray painting some graffiti and then the graffiti turns into an animation and fills the screen and goes off and looks like it has a life of its own and edits to the beat to make it a pleasurable viewing experience.

My final Idea is to have a video of a day at a BMX park, as i like BMXing so it would be an easy alternate to the other ideas if i run out of time, but i also think that this idea could work well as it fits in with the song and would look as relaxing as the song sounds.

Ed Sheeran – Thinking out loud (draft)

Ed Sheeran – Thinking out loud

The Narrative for the music video is mainly performance based, as there is no story to the video instead it is just a man and a woman dancing throughout the video, there is no lip syncing in it either, it is like the song suggest, these are the thoughts of the man while he is dancing with the woman, there is not really a narrative to the video, it is up to the viewers to decide, which is like what Andrew Goodwin suggests ‘narrative relations are highly complex and meaning can be created from the individual audio-viewer's personal musical taste’ for example, the story could be a love story which is represented through the dancing of the people. The video incorporates some of the binary oppositions, like the dance is man against woman, and there are areas of light vs dark, in term of the costumes that the people are wearing