Different perspectives on music videos

Carol Vernallis –
Carol studied editing and camera work in music videos very closely and she found that edits in music videos come a lot more frequently then they do in film and many stand out disjuncture and the edits are rhythmically connected to the song. Vernaliis observed that the main things that editing in music videos is they contain ‘continuity editing’ – edits that are a clear breakdown for the viewer to understand what’s going on , jump cuts, the base track shot which is where we see the same shot throughout the video and the shots with the camera moving to music.

 

this is the official video of demi lovato the photobucket above goes into detail with arol versallis theory of jump cuts etc to keep the audience informed

This video is a typical of what Carol talks about the quick and fast paced edits with the wipes and all the different animations shown below are some screen grabs of a few of the edits that catch the audiences eyes. This video also has what Carol talks about the camera moving with the music. 

              Above is an extract from the jennifer lopez music video of the camera moving to the music

Andrew Goodwin –

He believes that pop music doesn’t have the traditional narrative stance because pop videos  nowadays  use the singer as the narrator as well as the singer  and the singer breaks the forth wall by looking directly into the camera, this takes away the illusion of a story with the traditional start middle and end.

Goodwin believes that pop music depends upon repetition and that they always refer back to the same base track image where the artist is singing you the story. Goodwin also expresses his beliefs that pop music reuses old beats from other songs because the public are already familiar with them. When these songs are broadcasted via radio or film there is an audience familiar to the songs tune.  Pop videos in his opinion do lead to a close after repetition throughout the song it eventually fades away and ends with a happy or sad ending depending on the song itself.

Goodwin believes there are three types of relations between video and music:

1=illustration
-the video tells us a story e.g: Taylor swift –you belong to me 

This video tells us a story about a yong girl who is breaking up with her boyfriend it a typical teenage pop song with the repitition and catchy chorus. The mise en scene in this video is typical of a pop video all the 

2= Amplification-this is when the video introduces a new meaning that doesn’t contradict the lyrics but adds more layers of meaning to the story-  Love the way you lie – Eminem ft rihanna 

This video is based on a relationship but then the video intorduces a new meaning when the lyrics change to more violent ideas like 'killing' then the video introduces fire and becomes faster and the base track is flamed.

3= Disjuncture= this is where the video completely contradicts the lyrics-  man in the mirror Michael Jackson 

This video has literally no connection to the lyrics and this is a perfect example of disjuncture in a music video. 
                                                                                                                              

Laura Mulvey-

Mulvey talks about an imbalanced world split between an ACTIVE male and a PASSIVE female as society directs the male gaze and is determined to push the fantasy onto the female figure,  the majority of music videos do this. The images of a group or artist have been carefully planned out and have been and will be represented through their clothing, hair and narrative in the videos. Most of the time women are just there for sex appeal because sex in our society sells.

Through constantly having women portrayed in a sexual way even woman themselves will watch a music video and expect a certain representation of the females. The male gaze has affected not only men but women’s look on music videos. It isn’t often that you find a women who are fully clothed in a music video, however there are a few women that stand out and don’t live up to what Laura Mulvey described as societies expectations and the male fantasy.

Adele really stands out in her music videos as a woman who is in charge. She’s fully clothed and within the frames she takes centre stage and is the most dominant in her videos not just another PASSIVE woman. The mise en scene in her videos also is very individual to the average usual music video. Adele wears dark clothing her hair is tied back showing her sophistication and to show the difference between her and the normal barbie girl type women that society sees as the norm.

The photobucket slide show below shows screen shots of different videos and what the male gaze expects to see .