Postmodernism Is A Shortcut To Mass Audiences. Discuss.

Although different genre’s of bands have different markets (i.e. Indie Pop bands target students) creating a video with postmodernism allows them to extend their market and maximise their sales. When audiences see a particular topic in a new light, many people become intrigued. By creating a video with postmodernism, the band get more freedom, and a chance to design their own look. Instead of having various shots of the band positioned to make them look good, they are able to create a video relating to their fans.

 Postmodernism is mostly known as occurring during the 1980’s/1990’s era, however a clear demonstration of post modernism is shown within Bob Dylan’s video “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. Produced in 1960, people sometimes over look its meaning. Before this time, short films were produced. These include a non diegetic musical piece being added to a silent shot. No diegetic sound could be included but narrative would be followed through the actors gestures. Throughout the video, the song track is also non diegetic sound. No diegetic sound is included within the video, but the cards with the lyrics on are held up the camera and then dropped onto the floor. No lip synching is included within the video, unlike other music promo’s and although colour filming had been around for some years in the 1960’s, Bob Dylan chose to film in black and white. The idea of putting simple words of the lyrics on card and swapping them every few seconds, was a convention of older theatre. Instead of keeping up with the modern to make a promo, Dylan chose to make his video postmodern by showing he was backtracking in his promo, rather than moving forward. This demanded audience’s attention by the constant movement in the video. When watching, the audience try to discover a pattern between the selected words on card and this simplistic idea became a very popular video by Dylan due to post modernism.

 

 Another popular postmodernism video is Queen “I Want To Break Free”. Using the idea of a stereotypical housewife wanting to break free from their domestic lifestyle became easily relatable to women within the world.  By putting in a postmodern idea which has such a mass audience, quickly made the video extremely popular. By having this housewife with a big thick moustache, shocked the audience. During the 1980’s, America didn’t approve of transvestites, and so the video was banned from MTV and other US music shows. This element of shock and rebellion through postmodernism not only made audiences think, but by making North America disgusted in it, word of mouth made the video a “must see” by the public in many European countries.

 Postmodernism is shown to be a shortcut to mass audiences. Both Bob Dylan and Queen benefitted from using it within their video. Postmodernism is the new by referring to the old, this enables music promo’s to enrapture the middle age/older generation into their music, as well as their original market by using old topics with a new twist.

The Male Gaze Theory

What is it?

The male gaze theory is proposed by feminists in 1975 (Laura Mulvey). It is when the audience is seeing things through the eyes of a hetrosexual male. Mulvey stated that in many Hollywood films, the male gaze is to boost a male subconscious mind. In the world of film, directors are mostly male and the male gender is stereotypically shown as the more dominant character. The object of the male's gaze in the world of film is a female. Women are shown to be a pleasureable object rather than a pursuit.

 

 Mulvery disliked the idea of a woman being shown in a film, mostly after a male gives a seductive look to her. Instead of being shown a close up of a female's face, they are looked up and down from head to toe by the camera, showing female's to be an object of sex, rather than an equal. This doesn't only occur through cinema:

 Perfume Ad's Also Use It?

 The female body has been seen as a sex symbol since the ancient times. During Greek Mythology, the female body is seen as the symbol of love and beauty. This sexual look occuring within cinema, not only explains the male interest, but shows us that he has a power over the woman, as if he "owns" her. The person gazing is shown to have power over the person being gazed over. This power is reflected through cinema.

Music promo timeline

 1960’s

 Bob Dylan “Subterranean Blues”

This promo was taken in one continuous shot. No miming, colour or edits were put into this video. We could infer from this that Bob Dylan wanted the video to be all about the lyrics to the song, allowing the audience to interpret a narrative themselves.

 

1970’s

 The Beatles “Strawberry Fields”

 Many different shot types were incorporated into this video. They used miming to give the effect of singing the song within the promo and the use of colour has been put it. Filters were used to give effects of strong colours. The use of reverse was put in through editing. The promo seems like as many effects as possible were put in, this leaves the audience feeling slightly dizzy and over whelmed, it could be giving the impression of being on drugs as the 60’s/70’s were known as the “hippy phase.”  

 

 The Monkee’s- Constructed band, they included things such as wacky comedy, jump cuts and surrealism.

 

 Queen “Bohemium Rhapsody”

 This is the first recognised video to be a pop promo. It has a non-linear narrative and uniformity costumes. This allows the audience to recognise the band as equals in unison in comparison to individual artists. It makes the people watching become the audience at their concert, giving us a flavour of their ability to play live, advertising ticket sales. Front and back lighting was used within the promo to highlight the band in a shot and show their faces, but no other part of them, focusing us on their mouth’s miming the lyrics making us involved with the words.

 

 

 MTV 1981

 When it first opened, it was a niche market for white male rock acts. It could be accused of unwelcoming to the black recording artists due to its limited market.

 

 It was around this time that artists started to spend a staggering amount of money on making a music promo. Duran Duran spent $1 million to make “Wild Boys”

Michael Jackson “Thriller” 1990’s

This video was seen as ground breaking. It was a 13 minute mini movie, as well as a music promo. It included things such as choreographed dances fitting the beat of the song, lip sinking in perfect time with a fitting narrative that attracts the audience. It included both narrative and performance within the video advertising seeing Michael Jackson live. It became number 1 in the charts and showed Michael Jackson to be in a different league to any other artist of the time.

 

Types of Music video's

 1) Performance
 This advertises the bands ability to play live. It shows which member of the band plays which instrument and allows the audience to recognise each individual member as well as their group relations. The audience should feel as though they want to go to a live performance of the band, through the shots shown within the video. It gives us a chance to pretend to be the bands audience without paying the money for a professional gig, it almost works as a taster of the band for people who haven't nessecerily heard of them.



 2) Narrative
 A narrative music video is when a story is shown. It normally somehow relates to the lyrics and is the bands interpretation of what the song means to them. It is often a popular chocie as it allows the audience to gain an emotional connection to the song, making them favour it to another.

 3) Disjuncture
 A music video which has no relation to the song. Seen to be completely "random." It gives the video a confusing misunderstood feel. It completely ignores the songs lyrical message and meaning behind the words. It allows us as an audience to attempt to understand what the video actually means.

4) Amplification
 Similar to Disjuncture, but having a type of relation which the audience can relate to the song. The video is somehow related to the song, but there is a deeper message within that leaves the audience thinking about what the video could be portraying. 

 5) Illustration
 This is the easiest music video to grasp. The literal meaning of the song is shown through the filming of the video. This is often used in low budget music video's due to simplistic ideas sometimes working exceptionally well. An example of this would be Owl City- Fire flies.

 

 

 

 The lyrics of the song are literally shown to the audience through a machine. This is the idea of illustration as the literal meaning if displayed visually for the audience to see.



Post Modernism

 What Is Post Modernism?

 Although this term is very hard to summarise due to complications within definition, we have come to know it as a mixture of the old and the new, with the original and unoriginal.
 In a scale of time, post modernism didn't exist untill the 1900's. This is where people started to see the modern turn into the post modern. It becomes the new by refering to the old.

 

EXAMPLE-

 If looking at post modernism without the concept of music videos, it is easily understood.

 If we looked at the idea of vampires, the experimental stage would be trying out all manner of accents/looks and other components which could make a vampire up...

 The Cannon stage would be the developed Eatern European Villian, who sucks blood from pretty innocent virgin females.

 It then goes to the post modern stage, this would be things such as Twiilight. Instead of the stereotypical vampire, they are shown to be nice, vegitarian and twinkle like diamonds when in the sun.

 The Post Modern has changed an original vampire recognised as a villain, into a friendly hero, showing a dramatic change between the cannon and the post modern.

 

 

Music Videos- Are They Really A Film?

 

INTERTEXTUALITY

Dictionary Definition:

The interrelationship between two texts, usually used in literature; the way that similar or related texts influence, reflect, or differ from each other.

3 Main Types

 

Homage- high flattery

 

Pastiche- uses imagery to make a comment

 

Original film Top Gun aeroplan scene.

 

Will Young's retake of the film through his video.

 

 

Parody- mickey take

 

 This video is known for taking the mickey out of the film "Casper" by using dark villainous creatures. 

Prelim

Chosen genre and Artist

Artist description-

FUN     Indie/Pop genre.
The band is based in New York city and reached number one in the US charts Billboard Hot 100.
 It was the first alternative band to reach number one in this chart since Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" back in 2008.

 Why Did We Chose This Band?

The song "We Are Young" was in the top 10 of the UK top 40 for many weeks, and played continuously on multiple radio stations. Not only did this make us very familiar with the song, but we were also able to recognise the individual instruments involved. The band is easily recognised through their individuality and they are popular within our student age group. The melody of the song is reasonably slow, therefore it being easier to edit in order to fit together, making the task less complicated. We wanted to produce a prelim of a high standard as we were unfamiliar of filming a music video before. 

What We Wanted Our Prelim To Show

 Due to doing a Thriller opening last year as our media product, we discussed our familiarity between our AS creation and the narrative of a video. We realised the one aspect of a Music Promo we had never practiced before, was the performance side. We needed to practice fitting visuals of instruments with the beats of our chosen song, making it look believable. 

How Can We Achieve This Believable Look In Our Prelim?

Actors- We needed to ensure that the actors in our prelim were musicians, or could display a musical understanding, such as recognising different notes in order to fake playing the song to a high standard.

Location- Similar to the original video, we wanted the location of our prelim to have a clear distinction between artist and background. A plain black background with back and front lighting will show the musicians in the clearest possible light.

Lighting- No gels needed for our prelim, we want the band to look clear under white lighting, producing a strong image of black and white conflicting one another. 

 Costume- Shirts and ties with formal trousers/skirts. We chose to differ from the band by including a female keyboard player. This was due to her having a background in playing the keyboard, and us having limited options with other experienced musicians. Adding a female also breaks the idea of the band being a standard boy band and adds a modern flavour. This groomed but clear costume code shows the formality of the band, and sticks to the idea of clear monochrome colours. The sophisticated clothing goes against the song title "We Are Young" as it stops the youthful band show their own identity and conform to a business like state.

 Camera Shots- When filming the lead singer, we wanted the camera to be eye level with him for most of the shots. This will give the audience the impression of an equal level, making the lyrics feel personal to them when he says "WE are young." This creates direct speech to the audience through original lyrics. 

 

 

 For the guitar solo, the idea of the camera being below the actor shows the guitarists passion within the song, demanding our attention and making us feel inferior to his musical skills.

 

 

 

 

For the drummer, we wanted a range of shots. This is because it is a large instrument and difficult to set the camera so all of it can be seen. Close up's of the bass drum show the speed of the bass notes and introduce the song giving a mysterious atmosphere as you are shown the artists feet rather than his face. This creates a detached element, allowing the band to attach the audience throughout the song.

 

 

Close up's of the keyboard show the notes the player touches at each point in the song. It makes the audience recognise how the song is constructed and keeps them interested as the change of instruments and shots appear throughout in order to keep an entertained audience.

 

 

 

 

Our Prelim On Youtube

 

 

Presentation on our chosen genre

 CONVENTIONS OF INDIE POP

• Indie pop music videos focus on the literal song meaning.
• The mise-en-scene of indie pop videos is in urban settings, indie pop artists are seem to stick to lower budget videos and are seen as immature artists in industry.
• Camera angles: close ups showing the artists feelings allowing us as an audience to make an emotional connection with the band. Establishing shots are commonly used, as well as a pann so that we get a real feel of the location.
• It is important through a video, that the audience connect with the narrative. In an indie pop video, the framing of the shot often shows the band at eye level in order to create that personal touch.
• The editing techniques used are often simple transitions such as fade to blacks and fade to whites, or straight cuts. More complex visual transitions such as fade outs etc, can sometimes make the video look cheap. The indie pop genre is already known for being a self-made profession and adding these transitions gives the impression many of the bands are trying to escape from.
• The costumes used within the genre are of a smart/casual vibe, e.g. shirts and chino trousers or suits which are made to look more casual by removing the tie.
• The demographics within the mise-en-scene are dark colour shades to give the video the urban feel it needs to show the indie pop style.
• The narrative to the genre is normally focused on a boy/girl relationship where they have either found, or lost love.

 Our most influential indie pop band is "The Script" not only have they been hugely successful with their music, but they appeal especially to our "older student" age group and their catchy songs are known by a wide range of the public.

Their most typically indie pop genre promo  

Madonna

Like A Prayer

Originally set in a church, the audience automatically assume the song to be about God/Jesus. However, the burning cross represents the lyrics to the song as being a “sin” rather than a biblical reference, highlighting the rude metaphor.

A lot of metal is put into the mise-en-scene, it gives the idea of Madonna being in jail. This could represent the crime which she earlier witnesses in the video, or be a reflection of the captivity she is in.

Lots of red lighting and backgrounds represent the colours of hell.

 

Red is also the colour of sex. Her costume gives the impression of lust and desire and makes us think of her as “easy.”

 

 

 

 

The top photos suggests a cold, lonely environment suggesting the emotion of fear.

The kiss of jesus, could also reflect the kiss of Judas.

 This means betrayal which could represent why

Jesus walks out of the church near the end of the Video.