Categories Of Music Videos

Performance based videos

Performance based videos don't have a narrative. They are made of performance to keep the audience entertained for the whole video. E.g.: dance to build a relationship with the audience. This type of video is the assumingly cheapest and easiest. The location are easy to get. They also use different shots of the performance throughout the video such as close ups, low shots, wide shots, mid shots, long shots, and lots more. An example of performance based music video is. An example of this is Foo Fighters - Best of you. The artist has been recorded in lots of different location while they were performing.

Concept based videos

Concept based videos might be unusual or obscure for the viewer. It based on a concept which is an attraction to many consumers which draws them in. A good concept based music video is interesting, and keeps the audience entertained till the end. Usually there is only one created location where the performance is going on recorded from different camera positions. An example of this is around the world. They are cutting to the beat and the performance is very interesting because of the costumes and the background.

Narrative based video

Narrative based music videos are the videos that has a story. particular elements are positioned next to each other, and they are make sense to the audience. An example for narrative based music video is "Jennifer Lopez - Papi."

I applied the four narrative theories (Vladimir Propp's, Tzvetan Todorov's, Roland Brathes' and Claude Levi-Strauss') for this music video:

Propp's theory states there is a variety of character functions such as the hero, the princess, the villain, ect. In this video there Jennifer is the princess as she tries to get rid of the men that follows her everywhere to win her hand. The man who she escape with is the hero, because he saves her from the villain. The villain is the crowd as they distract the hero, and make it harder to reach his destiny.

Todorov's theory declare there is three different stages of the story line: equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium. In the equilibrium She is at work, dreaming of her lost love. Her life goes on normally until something unusual breaks this circle. Her colleague offer her a cookie and says: "Eat this cookie, and your love will come back". She eats the cookie and this is where the disequilibrium starts. Suddenly she becomes attractive for all the men. They are desperate to be with her, and keep following her everywhere. As soon as she makes a choice, the rest of the men stops fighting for her. In the new equilibrium she drives away with her new love.

Barthes' theory declare there is five different codes that activate the viewer to make sense of it. These codes are: action, enigma,  semic, symbolic and cultural.
Action is when the narrative goes to a resolution though the action. For example when Jennifer chooses one man out of the crowd, and spends her happily ever after with him.
Enigma is a narrative device that teases the audience by a presenting a riddle to be solved. For example while she is the desire of every men, she keeps distance from all of them however her aim is to find love. This element teases the viewer to see her accomplish her destiny, and find the one person who she want to be with.
Semic and symbolic are the elements that the audience senses (semic) and able to associate is with a meaning (symbolic). For example the red rose is a semic; And it represents the love men feel about her, while they are fighting for the flower to give it to her. This is the symbolic.
Cultural is a narrative device which the audience can recognize by being part of a culture. For example when a man goes down on his knees front of a woman meas he wants to engage her in most of the cultures. In this music video all the man goes on their knees next to her, shoving they are ready to join their life to hers for a lifetime.

Levi's theory states the narrative is motivated by a struggle between binary opposites, one side which will be represented as the "good" side which the audience should support and identify with. This character is Jennifer Lopez. Her character is an innocent girl who's looking for love. It is easy for the audience to identify with this character, because people are wish happy ending for the good characters; and retribution for the evil ones.

My video

I looked deeper into narrative based videos because my video will belong to this group. It will be based on a love story.

To refer to Prop's theory we are going to include the character of hero and princess as main the main characters of our video. The hero will try to earn the hand of the princess. This would assume the guy will fight for the girl, but we didn't want to make it that obvious, so we decided to switch the characters. The girl will be the one who falls in love with her trainer and having imaginations about being with him.

As in Todrov's theory we are going to have an equilibrium a distraction and a new equilibrium. The equilibrium will be a girl doing exercises in the gym following her trainers instructions. The distraction will be that she fall in love with him and the new equilibrium will be her and him outside of the gym.

We are going to include Levi's theory as well. The binomial opposites will be sensed in the location and the actions as well. At the equilibrium the location will be in a gym with low key lighting while the new equilibrium will be filled up with different interesting locations using high key lighting. The relationship between the characters will be the opposite too, as at the beginning the have a trainer-trained relationship while coming to the end they will be a couple.

Music Video Analysis

Duke Dumont - I got U

The beat of this song is slow similarly to our music. It highlights the lyrics and the video instead of the base. This makes the viewer concentrate on the story of the music video. The video is also bases on the narrative, just like the one we are making.  

At the beginning there is a middle shot of the main character to show he is a middle class person. He is being represented as a lonely person as he staring out of the window. In the mise-en-scene he's wearing an old green jumper, it shows he is poor, and he doesn't have money for holidays. They used low key lighting here to refer to the frustrating atmosphere.

They are using a diegetic sound of the bell to distract this atmosphere. It refers something is going to change. When he puts on the mysterious hat he finds himself in a different atmosphere. They are using binomial opposites as he suddenly got to the good side of life from a bad environment. The props of the new location refers to a comfortable atmosphere as they are using high key lighting and the Male-Gaze theory as there is lots of middle shots of attractive women in bikinis, dancing and having fun on the beach. This attract the male audiences attention ans also appeal to the teenage target audience because there are lovely scenes of summer holidays and having fun. There are also some shot of beautiful landscapes to attract attention. As the location changes with shade effect the non diegetic sound of this deep house music, and the shot changes for point of view. This is effective because the viewers feel like they are looking at the world from the artist's point of view. It helps them identify with the character and see how amazing he feels in the illusion. 

The representation of the main character changed as well.  He is being represented as a rich and famous person who is the dream of every girl, as they all turn around when he comes and trying to get in touch with him. In the mise-en-scene his old fashion clothes changed for a stylish short.

There is loads of binomial opposites appeared in the mise-en-scene. For example: rain - sunshine, old warm clothes - fashionable shots and bikinis, loneliness - rich social life, low key lighting - high key lighting, midshots - point of view shots.

The lyrics refers to his addiction to the new world. E.g.: when it says “it’s alright as long as I got u baby” he is talking about the dream world; and the line “As the years passes by we stay young through each other’s eye” shows that it affects him as a drug. 

Jason Derulo - Wiggle 

However this music video is not exactly the same type of video that we are making, there is lots of good technique that we are planing to use. I decided to analyse this video to get some good idea for our own music video.

In the editing they used a special technique which is the cutting to the beat. It creates a positive vibe and makes the viewer move for the rhythm. After this there is a reverse shot to show the locations which are the house and the pool while showing the title of the video. This mise-en-scene with the high key lighting and beautiful rich environment appeal to the teenage audience, as their dream is to be rich and live in a house like this.

The singers are lip-syncing. It makes the audience memorise the lyrics and sing it with them. When they are lip-syncing front of the wall their clothes are contrasting with the background. They also moving and dancing for the rhythm. It makes the viewer want to dance with them. 

They also uses lots of close ups to highlight the important parts. For example on the lip when they are singing. The Male-Gaze theory appearing through the whole video. They are using lots of sexuality to pay the audience's attention. Young guys and girls are like to see attractive people from the opposite gender. E.g.: women bottom in shorts while they "wiggle"; attractive guys with big muscles. 

The locations are very important in the view. They used beautiful locations,with bright colours and high key lighting. These places are also appeal to the audience.

The lyrics "Damn girl you got a bright future behind you" is the last sentence of the song. There is no music while he says it. It is a good way to finish the video. There is a twist in it which makes it funny and cool.

Mr Probz - Waves

My track

We choose the track called "Summer" from Calvin Harris. The genre of this track is electro house. Music videos for house songs are usually narrative based, and the narrative suits to the lyrics. In these music videos I expect to see high key lighting and we are also planning to use point of view shots. These music videos are always including locations from beaches and hot beautiful laces, that are reminding the viewer for a holiday. We wanted to include these kind of shots as well, so in the summer we filmed on our holiday at Spain. as most of the house songs our one is about love, so there going to be a couple in the video.

We are also planning to include scenes of extreme sports.

We decided to change the song for the "Need Your Love" Which is the same artist: Calvin Harris and the same genre, so the same rules are applying for the song as been for the "Summer". They both are about love and we are going to make the same shots and follow the previous plans.

Paul Hunter

Paul Hunter is a musical video director. I made a presentation to show How do I feel about his work.