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Thursday 11 November 2010

Trip to RichMix (Morning Session)...



On Tuesday 9th November, we went on a trip to London's up and coming arts centre in Shoreditch called RichMix in order to be part of their educational presentation called 'From MTV to YouTube: Studying Music Video'.

>> Click here to go to the RichMix website <<

In the morning we had a presentation by Pete Fraser on the history of the music video, codes and conventions and top tips for making our own pop promo. This presentation was extremely beneficial to us, as Pete Fraser was able to provide us with lots of information on the way music videos/promos have developed over the years and how we can produce a successful music video for our A Level Media Studies. He went through a very interesting presentation with some examples of music videos dating back to early experiments in the 1930s. I thought the presentation was incredibly interesting as he taught us about the history of music videos that we may never have come across otherwise.
>> click here to see Pete Fraser's blog << This blog contains all the information he gave us on the day of the trip.

Here is the first clip he showed us which is a very early exploration of putting moving images to music called The Colour Box by Len Lye (1935);







I had no idea that experimentation with film and music like this existed that far back in history until I saw this presentation, so I definately learnt lots of new things about the concept of music videos and where they originated. He then showed us a more modern video which clearly contains very similar aspects in colour, movement and concept of simply putting moving images to music, more of an artform than a promo. The modern video he showed us to compare to 'The Colour Box' (1935) was 'Ladyflash' by The Go! Team (2006) >> click here to watch The Go! Team video << I found it so interesting to see how similar the colours and movements were in both these videos.

As we began to progress through the history of music videos, we got to the 'Soundies' which relates to the concept of voyeurism in this early promotional music video of Nat King Cole 'Frim Fram Sauce'. At 0:38 the audience sees Nat King Cole watching himself on the 'Soundie' (a popular video jukebox in America in the 1940s) which shows the first uses of voyeurism in promotional music videos;







We also learnt about a development of the 'Soundies' called the 'Scopitone' which became very popular in Europe just after World War II. Here is a photograph of a Scopitone which would play short promotional videos such as the one below;






The rest of the presentation was spent going through more modern music videos everything from The Beatles 'Can't Buy Me Love' to Jay-Z '99 Problems'. We watched them all and then Pete Fraser explained why they conformed/challenged Genre Characteristics/Audience Expectations/etc. For example, the whole of Madonna's video for 'Open Your Heart' is based around looking at her, which is an obvious use of Voyeurism;





We also looked at 50 Cent 'Candy Shop' and learnt about the stereotypically sexual way in which women are objectified in rap artist's videos;





Other videos that we watched were The Beatles 'Can't Buy Me Love' which showed us how music videos became a way for fans to get an insight of what the band are like as people, Michael Jackson 'Thriller' as an example of a big budget video which almost ended up as a short film, Jay-Z '99 Problems' which is an incredible music video where the audience sees something new about it after many viewings and finally, Dangermouse 'The Grey Video' and the prisoners' version of Thriller as an examples of how YouTube has revolutionised the way we listen to music and the way it is promoted.

Here are all those videos mentioned above;






















We were also told about some ideas from Andrew Goodwin's Analysis of promotional music videos of what should be expected from a music video (what we should include in our own promotional music video);

Genre Characteristics - obvious expectations of the different genres.

Relationship of music/lyrics with visuals - amplify the lyrics rather than simplifying them. Illustrate the lyrics.

Intertextuality - refer to films/other music videos/theatre/books/etc.

Star Image - emphasis on the star's image/branding (Madonna is an interesting example because of her ever changing image over the years).

Voyeurism - idea of looking and observing (particular emphasis fascination with the female body)


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