The document discusses various definitions and perspectives on music videos. It begins by defining music videos as short films that integrate song and imagery for promotional or artistic purposes. It then examines definitions from scholars on what constitutes a good music video. Technical aspects like editing, camerawork, and lighting are discussed. Different types of music videos like performance, narrative, and conceptual are outlined. The document also explores theoretical concepts like authenticity, stardom, and how music videos relate to postmodern culture. Experts provide insights on the production process and how music videos can effectively promote songs.

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Music video research

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Defining music video
 Andrew Goodwin defines a good promo video as;
 “A clip that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which that music is made
visual, either in new ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations.”

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Wikipedia detention of music videos
 A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced
for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and
used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Music
videos use a wide range of styles of contemporary video making techniques, including
animation, live action filming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as
abstract film. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation, music, and
live action. Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song's lyrics,
while others take a more thematic approach. Other music videos may be merely a
filmed version of the song's live performance.

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Billy Zaidi’s definition
 A good music video is one which brings to life the lyrics and/or music of a song
released as a single to promote both the release of an album and the artist who has
recorded it.
 Although they can be seen as just an advert, the best videos embrace the best of
postmodern culture by combining dynamic performance and stylish visual images with
a themed concept which enhances the target audience’s enjoyment and
understanding of the song, and the genre or subculture that spawned it.

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Pete Fraser; Technical
 There are 3 types of music videos
 Illustration – the most simple type that just visualise the lyrics
 Amplification – metaphorically develop the lyrics into a theme or concept
 Disjuncture – abstract videos with no clear link to the song

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Pete Fraser- technical
 Editing to the beat
 Montage editing
 Speed – editing, camera movement etc
 Performance
 Lighting and colour
 Mise-en-scene
 Montage editing and fast cutting creates a visual decentred experience which is needed
for s music video. The images occasionally moving so fast that it’s impossible to
understand on the first viewing which needs to be viewed several times.

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Other critical perspectives
Most consumers do not regard the promo video as a mere commercial.
Aufderheide (1986) describes the connection of viewer to video as having little to do with “cash or
commodities” – they “cross the consumers’ gaze as a series of mood states. They trigger nostalgia,
regret, anxiety, dread, envy, pity, titillation – attitudes at one remove from the primal expression such
as passion, ecstasy and rage. The moods often express an incompletion, an instability, a searching
for location. In music videos those feelings are carried on flights of whimsy...”
Abt (1987) states that directors of videos “strive to make their products as exciting as the music. In the
struggle to establish and maintain a following, artists utilise any number of techniques to appear
exotic, powerful, tough, sexy, cool, unique.”

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3 main types of promo videos
Performance – the most common type, with artist performing to enthusiastic fans, to convey a sense of in-concert experience.
Gow (1992) suggests that this is to reinforce the message that the soundtrack – the music – is still “the most important element.”
Narrative – a video may tell any kind of story, but the most common narrative mode is the love story, often with the action dominated
by males and females who passively react or wait for something to happen (Schwichtenburg 1992)
Conceptual videos rely on poetic form, the metaphor They do not tell a story in linear fashion but create a mood, a feeling to
be evoked in the viewing experience (Firth 1988). They contain the possibility for repeated viewings as the metaphor is interpreted by the
individual viewer.

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Synaesthesia
 This describes the process where you hear a piece of music and visualise it in your mind’s eye.
 This might be based on your own personal experiences .
 This might be based on your own creative interpretation of the song.
 Many music video directors use this synesthetic process to come up with ideas [or just have great
concepts for a video and wait for the right song to come along.

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Grain of voice
 Roland barthes wrote about the role of the singer in modern music.
 The theory of grain of voice sees the singing voice as a more expressive instrument, which is personal it can also seen as
unique even to the singer
 The voice of a song may trademark work hand in hand with the star image
 In terms of your work, this theory helps explain why the singer is often seen as the most important member in a band, and
in the editing process gets more close-ups and screen time

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Star image and meta-narrative
 As we live in increasingly image-obsessed times, many artists work very hard on the way they represent
themselves in terms of star image which invariably involves sex appeal or being a ‘cool’ style icon.
 The music business relies on the relatively few big names to fund its activities; it usually fails to connect
with popular audiences – only about 1 in 10 acts put out by the music industry actually makes any money.
Therefore, what we can describe as the meta-narrative of the star image will have an important part to
play in the role of a music video production process. This helps explain why many artists constantly update
their ’look’ so they stay in the public eye
 Meta- narrative is a term that describes the development of a star image over time, the stories that
surround a particular artist.

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Dancing in the distraction factory
 Cultural critics have viewed music videos in a variety of different ways, which reflects how
diverse and problematic they can be to define as an art-form or media text:
* Mercer looks at them as a kind of cinematic genre
* Fry and Fry view them in terms of adverts
* Fiske as a new form of television as classic postmodern texts
* Walker sees them as visual art
* Lewis sees them merely in terms of shopping mall culture
* Marcus views them as semiotic pornography

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Sound and vision; a music video reader
Music videos are the ultimate expression of various trends in modern culture coming together:
* They blur the distinction between high art (opera, art...) and popular culture (film, TV, pop music, comics...)
* They borrow heavily from other cultural texts in a postmodern way by taking different genre elements of fashion/
musical style and fusing them together
* Commodification – this refers to the way that music is not just produced for its own sake, because people want to
make music, but as a commodity or product that can be packaged and sold
* textual ‘schizophrenia’ which refers to the way that music videos jump from one idea or image to another – as
long as they look cool, that’s all that matters...
* the postmodern disappearance of reality – people can grow wings or turn into cartoons or whatever – as long as
they look cool, that’s all that matters...
* the erosion of authenticity.

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Authenticity
 Lawrence Grossberg uses the phrase “the ideology of authenticity.”
 Music can be considered at its most authentic when people are playing instruments or singing live. In music videos, artists
are just performers, lip-syncing to songs or miming along to the pre-recorded music.
 As viewers, we know the musicians are not actually performing, but go along with this inauthentic authenticity because
we are more concerned with the visual spectacle rather than whether it is ‘real’
 Music video are also criticised because they limit the imaginative freedom of fans by taking away the listener’s freedom to
interpret a song how they like, by imposing a visual or even narrative interpretation of the song upon them.

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Pop-up video
 This show ran out music video channel VH1 for years and showed promo videos with pop up displays giving background
information on a range of topics like release date, bloopers, trivia and technical aspects regarding the production process.
 In other words, the pop ups deconstructed the videos to reveal how they were made, adding an extra level of pleasure for
the audience beyond just watching the video itself.

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Suzy Davis interview; MediaMagazine
 The interview is useful due to the fact that Davis talks about the importance of developing an appropriate
concept for a promo video. Davis gives the advice “Keep it simple, avoiding complicated narrative”.
 Davis highlights, the importance of editing as a key technical element which enhances the songs beat and
overall structure. Davis is also gives useful insightful into production practices employed by real media
professionals especially if the shots aren’t great.
 Use lighting to create simple effects in camera. Color grading tool can be applied to every shot. You can
drop in flash frames for effect. You can link two boring looking shots more interestingly by flipping one
upside down or creating some kind of interesting movement. Use the motion tool to create moves that
aren't really there.