college

1. MUSIC VIDEO PRODUCTION
CASE STUDY
D R EW TO ML INSO N
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2. TASK 1 -
PURPOSES
Y O U S H O U L D O P E N T H E M U S I C L E C T U R E
P O W E R P O I N T A N D L O O K AT S E C T I O N 1
B E F O R E D O I N G T H I S TA S K

3. TASK 1 - PURPOSES
• Q1 - Outline the 3 core purposes of music video with a short
explanation for each:
• To be entertaining, if it’s not first and foremost entertaining, you
wont grab people’s attention.
• To establish an artist’s specific brand, to familiarize people with
them.
• To sell the artist, sell merch, tickets, records.

4. TASK 1 - PURPOSES
• Q2 – What are some of the broader purposes of music videos?
Try and outline a minimum of 3. (Think about some of the
strategies employed by artists in their videos and how they
represent themselves, you could consider where the artist is on
a major label, independent label of unsigned, is there a
difference between them?)
• They represent themselves differently depending on their target
audience.
• Clothes, hairstyles, attitude etc.
• Artists on major labels will be more formulaic compared to an
indie artists or an artists on a smaller label.

5. TASK 1 - PURPOSES
• Q3 – Branding; select an artist you like and look at how they present
themselves in their music videos. Explain what their ‘brand’ is, who is
appeals to and why they might have done this.
• Ryan Bingham, in the music video for ‘Sunrise’, it’s an old school almost
Western style of video. As he goes from town to town with his guitar,
hitchhiking along the way etc.
• His brand is clearly that of a lonesome ‘’cowboy’’ drifting from one town to
the next playing music.
• This will most likely appeal to Americans, most likely early 20s, of that
geography, or simply people who enjoy good lyricism.
• The video also fits well with the song, and going off the way the video is
presented, there is clearly an artistic motive behind it rather than just to
make money.

6. TASK 1 - PURPOSES
• Q4 – Compare One Direction and Animal Collective music
videos [find them on YouTube!], what can you discern about
each act from their videos? What is the main aim? Explain why.
• One Direction music videos are very ‘’meh’’, they are extremely
formulaic, there’s no artistic drive behind their creation, simply
just making money.
• Animal Collective videos however, whether you like the music or
not, are trying to do more than just sell records. They want
people to watch and make interpretations of what they see.
They don’t give you all the answers. Simply aiming to create art.

7. TASK 2 – STYLES,
TECHNIQUES AND
CONVENTIONS
Y O U S H O U L D O P E N T H E M U S I C L E C T U R E
P O W E R P O I N T A N D L O O K AT S E C T I O N 2
B E F O R E D O I N G T H I S TA S K

8. TASK 2 – STYLES, TECHNIQUES
AND CONVENTIONS
• Q1 – Describe and explain the use of camerawork in music videos, i.e. the
types of shot used with examples to illustrate this and how this creates
meaning
• If the song is more intimate, the director could implement close up shots of
the people’s faces, rather than keep it distant, however if it’s a hip-hop song
for example and there’s a lot of people the camera can be wide, fitting as
many people into the frame as possible.
• Also taking into consideration that a lot of people watch music videos on
mobile, the close up may be the better option for more mainstream artists.
• Camerawork can also be used to illustrate emotions through the framing
and movement, however that will most likely be reserved for smaller music
videos, rather than mainstream ones.

9. TASK 2 – STYLES, TECHNIQUES
AND CONVENTIONS
• Q2 - Describe and explain the use of editing in music videos,
i.e. the types of shot used with examples to illustrate this and
what the effect of this is/meanings that are created/etc.
• Edit to the beat is an easy way to make a music video feel fluent
and engage an audience.
• It’s also common to see a lot of quick cuts all over the place in
mainstream music videos. – Extremely fast pacing
• Colour correction is a common and easy thing to add in post, if
you want your video to have a specific vibe.

10. TASK 2 – STYLES, TECHNIQUES
AND CONVENTIONS
• Q3 – Genre conventions; often music videos adhere to genre
conventions within their visual style and production techniques.
Select a recognisable genre and use illustrations to explain what
their genre conventions are… Country Music
• In almost every country music video you’ll see some form of
cowboy hat, a pickup truck, a road, shots of open fields,
cattle/cattle hearing, the American flag.

11. TASK 2 – STYLES, TECHNIQUES
AND CONVENTIONS
• Q4 - John Stuart’s description of the music video “incorporating,
raiding and reconstructing” is essentially the essence of
intertextuality [something asserted by Andrew Goodwin]. Can
you explain what intertextuality is and find a minimum of 3
examples of it in music videos?
• Intertextuality is an artist using something that already exists
and essentially recreating it in their own video.
• My Chemical Romance - The Ghost Of You
• One – Metallica
• The Universal - Blur

12. TASK 3 – CASE
STUDY
Y O U S H O U L D O P E N T H E M U S I C L E C T U R E
P O W E R P O I N T A N D L O O K AT S E C T I O N 3
B E F O R E D O I N G T H I S TA S K

13. THE BEATLES
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Styles/Techniques
• With the song being a combination of multiple songs into one and not tied to a specific genre, I think they tried to
pull off that same effect with the video, given that one part is a party, the other is an orchestra etc.
• The song was released on the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band which notoriously has a very colourful
album cover, the video also features a wide colour pallet as you can see in the images.
• It’s almost documentary style, with the people in it being aware of, yet still performing for and interacting with the
camera.
Intertextuality
• They literally invented everything.
Camera Work/Editing
• The camera is handheld so it’s very shaky and all over the place, creating a frantic/drunk type mood.
• It’s also often out of focus which also adds to the hectic nature of the song and video.
• There’s use of a lot of frantic cuts on the beat, quickly cutting between one thing to another.
Genre Conventions
• With the cuts often being made to the beat, that establishes a relationship between the music and visuals.
• It’s hard to place The Beatles in a genre, their videos are definitely something to look at and interpret your own
opinions. However
• However the closest genre I’d place it in would be rock(?).
The Beatles - A Day In The Life - YouTube

14. THE BEATLES
STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER
Styles/Techniques
• Like with most Beatles music videos, they’re always aware of the camera and it’s a sort of
documentary style.
• There’s use of slow motion and use of reversing the footage in a scene where Paul jumps onto
tree from the ground.
• Paul controls the lighting in one scene, turning it from night time to a full red colour scheme.
Adding to the already packed colour pallet.
• Inserts of their faces are faded over one and other.
Camera Work/Editing
• There’s a part where the camera goes around the band in a circle, but clearly being pushed by
Ringo, calling back to the ‘’documentary’’ style.
• At times the camera is ‘’floating’’ around the instrument.
• Use of rapid cuts to the beat to illustrate the ‘’all over the place’’ nature of the video.
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever -
YouTube

15. THE BEATLES
SOMETHING
Styles/Techniques
• Straight away you notice how slower paced this video is compared to their others, the image fades to the next,
slowly with meaning.
• This video also uses a lot of close ups to create an intimate atmosphere.
• Compared to their other videos which often use a lot of colour, this one chooses to go to more neutral colours like
brown, green, yellow/orange and blue. The colours of nature, maybe indicating it’s human nature to love, which is
what the song is about. The only time they really break away from those colours is with the colour red, which is
a colour for love.
Camera Work/Editing
• Each cut is slow but deliberate, electing not to cut on every beat like most videos, when it cuts on the beat it still
maintains the mood the video has created. Mostly cutting on the beat between close ups of their faces.
Genre Conventions
• Again it’s always hard to place The Beatles in any one genre, but you can compare it to videos for songs about
that would be made today. Chances are they’d feature some type of sexualisation of women, but that’s not the
here, it shows the faces of the people, that’s what's important in this video.
The Beatles - Something - YouTube

16. TASK 4 – LINKS
TO YOUR OWN
WORK

17. IDEAS
• Depending on the song I choose, I really enjoyed the smoothness
of The Beatles ‘Something’ video, especially when they cut on the
beat and still managed to keep the fluid feeling the video had built.
• Visuals should always have some relation to the lyrics, not a black
and white clear view of what the song is trying to tell you, but keep
it open to interpretation, make the viewer think.
• To borrow ideas from things I've already seen, making it my own in
the process.
• To be aware of Andre Goodwin’s analysis of music video’s when
creating my own.
• Keep the visuals interesting and associated with the music.