analysis of student music videos

I am doing an analysis of Gunslinger by Avenged Sevenfold. This is a video of the rock genre, and I really enjoyed listening to it. It followed some of the conventions of a rock video as there was a big element of performance and there are many close ups of the band wearing traditional rock clothes and their instruments.

There is also a strong narrative element in the video. Overall the narrative and the video link together, however there are some points where the music doesn’t quite fit the tone of the narrative.

Mise-en-scene

The video begins in a forest scene. There are two people walking through the forest in military gear, showing that they are army combatants. They have guns at the ready which connotes danger.

The forest is very quiet and eerie, again connoting danger. When the enemy appears, there are close ups of the soldiers face denoting fear. Close ups of the dead bodies bring home the horror of the situation. This also helps to create a sense of realism to the viewer of the horrors that can happen in war for the viewers at home.

This scene is contrasted by scenes of his wife at home. She is shown sitting by a hospital bed with her husband lying in the bed. She is also shown in the church praying. It is very quiet and the atmosphere is spiritual and very sad.

She is shown in the graveyard putting flowers on the grave.

She is shown in a sitting room alone on a sofa with a photo of herself having just given birth to a child.

Sound

There is non-diegetic music heard throughout the video, with some lip-synching. The main lines that stand out is ‘I’m coming home to you’. This connotes that it is a message from the soldier to his wife, where is reassuring her that he is on his way home. It also connotes that all soldiers fighting miss their lives back at home and are looking forward to the day they return home to their families.

However some of the lip synching was a bit out of timing with the video but overall the song fitted with the narrative of the video.

Camera Angles 

The video opens with a fade in shot to a close up shot of a pair of army boots and army trousers. This draws us straight into the scene and gives us a feeling of danger and makes us realise this is an important character in the video.

There are many shots of the singer himself. Some are long shots showing him standing on the hill. This is stereotypical of rock videos, where the band and singer are the main focus. There are also lots of close ups of the singer, and again this is stereotypical as the record company would want as much advertising as possible for the band and the singer. There are many shots of the instruments which is again stereotypical of the rock genre.

The shots of the band members in an open and quiet place contrast the shots of the soldiers in the forest being shot at by the enemy. It connotes how the war is perceived by the people fighting and the people who aren’t fighting.

There are long shots of the soldiers walking in the forest, and the enemy is seen in the distance.

There are close ups of the dead soldiers which bring the horror home to the audience.

There numerous shots of a church and a church graveyard. Churches are considered a place of hope and faith. So the shots here are used to create a sense that the woman is desperately hoping for her husbands’ safe return. When the woman begins to pray for her husband, this again reinforces the faith and hope she has that her husband will be ok.

At the end of the video there are shots of the forest with the band playing with shots of the church superimposed over them.

Narrative

This video has a strong narrative content which runs throughout the video. It tells of two army personnel who are ambushed while on duty. It tells of the grief of the wife as her husband does not return.

The two army personnel are ambushed as they walk through the forest by a mystery character, possibly a Middle Eastern freedom fighter. As they are shot in a forest, this shows the realism of the war, as at any moment another soldier may get killed by any person in the Middle East. The first is shot outright, the second surrenders but is shot anyway at point blank range.This connotes that in war no-one is safe and anyone can die at any point.

Titling

There is an acknowledgment at the end of the video which reads

‘This song’s for all the men and women serving in uniform, protecting our country, protecting our rights. We pray they come home safely.’

M Shadows 2007

The letters are a plain font with white on a black background. This shows that the video is paying tribute to all the brave men and women who are fighting for their country and their families.

Questionnaire

Before creating our own music video, I created an audience questionnaire to help identify the most popular genre of music and music video. This questionnaire will help in several ways. We need to decide on our target audience, and once our target audience has been identified, we can use the results of our questionnaire to determine the preferences of this target audience as all of our questionnaire results have been broken down into age ranges. We can look at specific areas such as what genre of music video do you watch and which gender prefers which music video. By using this knowledge we can tailor our video so that it will appeal to our target audience. This is very important as any record company would undertake this same kind of research when developing mainstream music videos.

analysis of questionnaire

I gave my questionnaire to a sample of thirty males and females, ranging from 16 to the over 35 group. I have looked at my results. Some I have recorded in graphical form, in some cases separating out gender and age ranges in the responses. I have then analysed my findings.

1.     Gender

The pie chart shows that 18 male and 12 female took part in my questionnaire. I feel that the fact there are more males than females is reflected in some of the answers.

2.     How old are you?

I split the age ranges into 5 categories, 16-18, 19-21, 22-24, 25-35, and 35+. I felt that these bands reflected people who would be likely to have similar interests and tastes so that I can compare them.

3.     What genre of music do you listen to?

I was interested to see that more males than females liked to listen to both rock music and hip-hop music. This I would have expected as both these genres are more male orientated, in particular hip-hop. I was surprised to see more females than males preferred metal as I would have thought this was a male orientated genre.

I also looked at the different genres of music which appealed to different age groups. Jazz was chosen only by the 35+ age range. I am not surprised by this as jazz is not a popular genre for younger age groups. Rock and pop were popular with the 19 – 21 age group. This was again what I would have expected.

4.     What radio stations do you listen to?

I gave the choice of five different radio stations, and the option to choose none.

Kiss FM – specialises in hip-hop, R+B, Urban and electronic dance

Capital FM – plays the latest hits and a selection across genres

Kerrang – plays metal, punk and rock

Heart FM – plays a selection with certain times being set aside for shows such as Club Classics

Absolute – plays 1990s music

I would expect people to choose a radio station based on their preferred genre. People who preferred rock or metal listened to Kerrang which specialises in these genres. More males than females preferred this station. Kiss FM was preferred by females. Capital FM was a popular choice for age groups between 19 – 24.

5.     What music channels do you watch?

Viva, Kiss and 4Music are all channels featuring videos from the charts and music that is currently in demand. Kerrang specialises in metal, rock and punk, while The Box specialises in being the first to air big hits.

I would anticipate that people would again link the genre of music they prefer and the radio stations they listen to to the music channels they will watch. I was surprised to see that Kerrang was not chosen by many people, even though many listened to Kerrang radio. The Box was a popular choice with 19 – 21 age group reflecting their interest in current music.

6.     What music videos do you enjoy watching?

This was an open question which got a wide variety of answers. The oldest age range did not in general watch music videos, and were only able to comment on odd extracts they had seen as clips on the television. People up to 24 watched music videos mainly on You Tube although some watched on

7.     The question which asked why do you enjoy watching music videos provoked some interesting results. Narrative was important to females, while good lyrics and meaning was important to males. The song and band members were important to both sexes. Good narrative was very important to 19 – 21 year olds which was interesting – they are looking for the content. Lyrics was also very important to this age group. It was interesting to see that the song was the only important factor for the 25 – 35 age group, showing that possibly this group enjoy hearing a song and becoming familiar with it. The song did feature in the answers for every age group.

8.     The answers to the question Do you go to music festivals and concerts was interesting. This is obviously a popular thing to do for all age groups, as some from all age groups said they attended these all the time. Interestingly it was people from 19 - 24 who said they never attended music festivals or concerts, whereas I was surprised that people over the age of 35 did. I think this age group may possibly not have money to spend on these activities as they are expensive and many would be at university at this time. However on further questioning, this was attending concerts rather than music festivals, although one had attended the V festival last year.

9.     Why do you go to music festivals was also interesting. The most common answer was by far related to seeing the bands first hand and enjoying the live music. Some said that they attended each year with the same group of people and enjoyed all meeting up – for them it was a real social occasion. One said they also enjoyed all the other tents which offer other activities as well.

10.                         This again was an open question. About half the people said that they were looking purely at the music content of a music video, and were interested in purely the performance of the band and the music itself. The other half said they wanted the video a story relating to the song and real life drama.

Music poster advertisement

By studying this music poster I have learnt a great deal about what to include on the cover of my digipack. The cover will serve very much the same purpose as this poster as it needs to advertise both the artist and the name of the song. The names need to be bold and must stand out from the cover in order to attract the attention of people who may want to buy it. It needs to be bold colours with a clear font. I think it would be a good idea to include a picture of the artist aswell.

comparison of music videos

Madonna videos

Madonna is famous for her high budget videos to promote her music, and there are common themes that run throughout her work.

Firstly she always plays a central role in her videos. She is portrayed as sexy and beautiful, and performs technically challenging dance roles in many of her videos.  She makes reference to Hollywood stars such as Marilyn Monroe in several of her videos, for example Vogue and Material Girl. In Hung Up she pays tribute to the dancing of John Travolta. She is prepared to address quite profound issues in her videos such as inter-racial love stories in Like A Prayer and Borderline. Again in American Life she includes powerful images of war and violence.  Many of her videos are quite sexually explicit, and this can be seen in Like A virgin and Justify My Love. Again in Vogue the costumes are very revealing. While many of her videos are bright and colourful she has also explored the medium of black and white, as in Secret.

Jay Z videos

Jay Z is a very successful rap artist who has featured some very memorable videos.  His videos include many characteristics of the genre of hip-hop.

Many show shots of urban lifestyle and present scenes of the city. Examples include Dirt Off Your Shoulder, Lost One and 99 Problems. Much of Jay Z’s music centres on problems in the urban cities and he uses his videos to portray this. He includes city scenes in Dirt Off Your Shoulder and Lost One. Wealth, expensive cars and flashy jewellery, another characteristic of the genre, is obvious in many of his videos. In Blue Magic he is shown flashing 500 Euro notes. In Picasso Baby he is shown to be aspiring to wealth, art, champagne, and the finer things of life. Also in Roc Boys he is shown surrounded by money and alcohol. In Money Ain’t A Thing there are expensive racing cars.   There are lots of close ups of JayZ such as in Anything.

Voyeurism is a recurrent theme. The videos are full of half-naked, beautiful women for example I Just Wanna Love You. Here there are recurrent themes of clubs and dancing. He often uses black and white or very colourless scenes such as in On The Run and Jigga What Jigga Who. Again in Lost Ones there are dark scenes. He often works with other artists and often has guest rappers on his videos. Other people have included Eminem, DJKhaled and his wife Beyoncé.

Bon Jovi Videos

Bon Jovi is an American rock band from New Jersey. Their videos tend to be performance based which is stereotypical of the rock genre. There are numerous close up shots of the band performing in various venues, for instance in Let It Rock and Born To Be My Baby. There are also many shots of the band with their instruments such as in I Believe. The clothes of the band throughout all the videos are again stereotypical of a rock band. They wear jeans or leather trousers, tight fitting tops showing bare arms and chests. They wear jewellery and have ear piercings. They have the traditional long hair of a rock star. There are often scenes of people in the crowds at their concerts mouthing the lyrics with the band, for example in Who Says You Can’t Go Home. The crowds are constantly facing Bon Jovi, involved in the concert. The record label demands a lot of close ups of the band and this is seen in all the videos. Example would be You Give Love A Bad Name and Have A Nice Day. There is a definite relationship between the music and the visual, for the videos constantly move at a fast pace as does the music. There is a lot of use of darker scenes and dark lighting, for instance in Livin On A Prayer. Often black and white effects are used as in Wanted Dead Or Alive.
 

Music album advertisement

Rock music is my favourite genre, and Pearl Jam is a rock band. They have been around for some time and have produced many successful albums. They have a good fan base. They are an American rock group from Seattle.

The poster is very striking and dynamic. It has a black background with only two shades of red and white used in the poster. The top shape is half an elongated circle, and there is a large eye superimposed on the shape. On top of the eye is a cross and this makes us think that the red shape is a church with a cross on the top of it. There is a moon shape which connotes night time, and there are two large flashes of lightning drawn in white which hit the building, resonating out with the shock waves, and pierce into the eye. I think the eye could be the eye of God in the church or perhaps the congregation in the church.

The album is called Lightning Bolt, and the whole of the poster reflects that theme.

The name of the band, Pearl Jam, is printed in large, clear white letters against the black background. It stands out and grabs your attention. The name of the album Lightning Bolt is written in red, which could symbolise danger from the lightning strike. Again the letters are clear and crisp against the black background. There is a lot of other information on the poster telling date of release and advertising the singles on the album. This is to reach their audience and hopefully boost sales of the album.

At the bottom of the poster is a skull and crossbones shape but the crossbones are made of wrenches. This could signify death, a common theme with the genre of rock.

Finally there is the website of the band, which is another way to advertise and attract fans.

The whole poster has clear cut lines and is extremely eye catching, again catching the attention of the reader of the magazine and promoting the band.

Music Artist posters

Madonna – You Can Dance

 

This poster shows an image of Madonna dressed in a beautiful, sexy dress placed against a bright red background.

The focus of the poster is very much on Madonna as an artist. She is a massive star, instantly recognisable, and she is very much selling herself to her fans. The shot is a medium shot image, clearly set within the frame, pointing to the figure of Madonna as the focal point; it is where our eyes are immediately drawn. Her eyes are looking directly at the camera, drawing the audience in towards her and attracting the audience to the poster.

She is wearing a very elaborate, expensive, designer dress. It is quite revealing which carries sexual overtones. She has adopted a strong pose, showing she is a strong, individual woman. This will appeal to women who will aspire to be like her. However there is a sense of sexuality and vulnerability about her eyes and her face which will appeal to men. She uses her sexuality to appeal to her fans and plays upon her physical appearance to attract interest.

The background is a plain, vibrant shade of red. The red theme is continued in her nails and her lipstick. Red is a colour of passion which is the image Madonna is keen to portray. The plainness of the background shows us that it is the figure of Madonna that we should focus on. Red also connotes a possible sense of danger and excitement.

The name of the artist is in a large, white font which stands out clearly against the darker background. It is written as if it is in a handwriting style, adding a personal sense to the poster, as if Madonna is addressing us in person. The title of the sons is in slightly smaller font, denoting that it is of lesser importance than the iconic star herself.

 

Analysis of Coldplay Poster

 

Coldplay are a British rock band. Their music tends to be a softer style of rock, reflecting on emotions and feelings.

This poster very much sums up the image of the band. They are pictured as a group, showing they are very much part of a band, and this is how they want to be thought of by their audience. They are all dressed in similar dark suits, again denoting that they are all part of a group.

The shot of the band is of a medium length shot which shows they are the important focus of the poster. They have a serious, hard look to their faces, connoting that their music has a serious, meaningful side and that they are to be taken seriously as a group.

There is no writing on the poster, connoting that they are famous enough to be instantly recognisable by their audience.

The background is of a series of grey and white stripes which draw the viewer in to the poster. The poster is lighter at the top and growing darker towards the bottom. The lines look like a star radiating out which connotes what big stars the band are.

The overall impression of the band is of a darkly clothed band, fitting in with the conventions of a rock band where dark colours are usually worn.

 

Analysis of One Direction Poster

 

The poster of One Direction is in direct contrast to the poster of the group Coldplay.

One Direction is a very different band. They are appealing to a much younger audience, in particular young girls, and which to create a very different impression.

Here they appear as a baby-faced, young group of clean living lads, specifically targeting the young teenage girl audience. They are shown smiling and happy, connoting a sense of fun and enjoyment.

They are dressed in casual clothes, all showing an individual sense of style. Their clothes are very fashionable and are well colour coordinated throughout the group, using reds, blues and whites predominantly. They are smart and presentable, showing that these are boys who would be acceptable to the parents of their fans.  The shot is a medium length shot, focusing on the group. They all appear to get on very well together.

The background shows a series of hand written autographs of the boys, written in white against a red background. This makes them appear as real people – their fans would be very keen to get their autographs.

The logo 1D is written in white on a red background in the corner of the shot. The fact that it is small focuses out attention on the band, and connotes that they are so famous they do not really need to be identified in writing.

 

These analysis's are going to aid me in creating a digipak, as they will allow me to see the generic conventions on a digipak and will allow me to follow these conventions and create a successful digipak that will relate to the band that I use.