Music video assignment 01

MUSIC VIDEO PRODUCTION
CASE STUDY
JA MES SYK ES

MUSIC VIDEO PRODUCTION
• We will look at Music Videos from a number of perspectives, this
template is for you to write up your notes and to complete your
case study.
• The document is split into 3 different tasks, each with separate
questions to answer.
• Task 1 is concerned with the purposes of music videos and the
strategies employed by labels and artists
• Task 2 is concerned with the styles, techniques and conventions of
music video production
• Task 3 is your own case study into a minimum of three music
videos where you can unpack and discuss the videos considering
everything you have looked at in Task 1 and 2

NOTES ON COMPLETING THE
CASE STUDY
• It is often easier to show something you are discussing than to
take time describing it. With this in mind, feel free to add lots of
illustrative images from your chosen video examples. Links to
YouTube/Vevo/etc are also encouraged.
• Remember, when you make a point or define something, you
should follow this with an example, an explanation of this and
then link to further texts/videos where possible.
• If you don’t think there is enough room to add your full response
to a question, don’t just reset the font size to really small, add an
extra slide wherever necessary.

TASK 1 - PURPOSES
• Q1 - Outline the 3 core purposes of music video with a short
explanation for each:
• To promote the artist, and the album the song is from. Typically the song that has a music
video is the one that’s being promoted as a single for an upcoming or currently released
album.
• The second purpose is to entertain the fans of the artist, even if the video is kind of generic,
as long as it isn’t boring to the viewers then it will be fine. Some bands and artists use music
videos as an opportunity to tell a story.
• The third purpose is to make money for the record label and artist, every music video on
YouTube has at least one advert on it, and if the video has millions of views then that’s a lot
of profit.

TASK 1 - PURPOSES
• Q2 – What are some of the broader purposes of music videos? Think about
some of the strategies employed by artists in their videos and how they
represent themselves, you could consider where the artist is on a major
label, independent label of unsigned, is there a difference between them?
• The bigger acts always have a much bigger budget, since most of them have funding from
their record labels, if they’re independent then they budget it themselves.
• A bigger budget means an act can show off their creative vision without running into any
trouble, financially. A good example of a video like this is Childish Gambino’s ‘This is
America’. That video had a massive budget behind it, it had hundreds of actors, hidden
meanings are scattered everywhere, and some movie quality special effects are used once
or twice, a video like this only works with the budget it had.
• It’s obvious when a video has a smaller budget. The quality isn’t as high, there isn’t as much
going on, and the only people in the video is the act, most of the time. Obviously the artist
knows this so they don’t go for something as ambitious, a perfect example of this is,
Waterparks’ ‘21 questions’

TASK 1 - PURPOSES
• Q3 – Describe what is ‘synergy’ is and how it has been used in
music videos [min. 3 examples of synergy and convergance]
• ‘synergy’ is what happens when two or more forms of media come together to make a
promotional video, such as a music video containing clips from a movie, or a film
having music clips from. Typically music videos like these have a really big budget.
• The first example is the song ‘heathens’ by twenty one pilots. The music video for
that song tells it’s own story, while also containing clips from the movie ‘suicide
squad’. The video takes place in a prison, so the random movie clips don’t look too
out of place.
• The second example is the music video for the song ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams.
While the song was used in the movie ‘Despicable Me 2’ , the music video also
contains some references to the film, including a dancing minion and actors such as
Steve Carrel.
• The third example is the song ‘Skyfall’ by Adele, the song was used for one of the
‘James Bond’ movies and was used for the opening credits, the mainstream success
of this song was good, not only for Adele but for the people who made the movie,
since most people will associate them together. While the song never got an official
video, it was included in the movies soundtrack and was used a few times in the
movie.

TASK 1 - PURPOSES
• Q4 – Branding; select an artist you like and look at how they
present themselves in their music videos. Explain what their ‘brand’
is, who is appeals to and why they might have done this.
• An artist that represents themselves perfectly in their music videos is the band
‘Waterparks’. They’re a boy band, but not the standard one that people are used to,
they have a deeper meaning in all of their albums, and their music videos only go
further in depth with the concepts that they explore. Everyone in the band has a lot of
energy and would be considered as weird to anyone that doesn’t know who they are.
• One video in particular that they released recently, captures the energy of the song,
and their personalities really well. It’s fast paced, has hidden meanings, double
entendre’s, and connects to the song perfectly:
Video for ‘Watch What Happens Next’ by Waterparks:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvvojZqlonQ

TASK 1 - PURPOSES
• Q5 – Compare One Direction and Animal Collective music videos [find them
on YouTube!], what can you discern about each act from their videos? What is
the main aim? Explain why.
• The one direction video is very upbeat, uses nothing but bright colors, and is probably what
you think of when you think of a music video for that song. It’s pretty standard pop, it’s a
very formulaic music video, nothing too special about it, but it works with the song. The main
aim is to draw appeal to the guys in the band, since they share most of the screen time.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJO3ROT-A4E
• The Animal Collective video is completely different to the one direction video. It’s clearly on
a lower budget so they did the most with what they had. There isn’t as much going on in
comparison to some of their other videos, it doesn’t make much sense either, they definitely
more of a more minimalistic approach. I see why some people could see it as boring or
slower paced, which means Animal Collective had their already established audience in
mind when they were making this.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztvr09J7KK4

TASK 2 – STYLES,
TECHNIQUES AND
CONVENTIONS

TASK 2 – STYLES, TECHNIQUES
AND CONVENTIONS
• Q1 – Describe and explain the use of camerawork in music
videos, i.e. the types of shot used with examples to illustrate this
• The 2 most common types of camera work in music videos are mid shots and close
ups, typically most scenes are shot with only one shot, the same scene never really
jumps around too much, there’s just constant jump cuts to other scenes. If there ever
is a long shot it’s to show the scale of something that’s going on around the artist.
Close ups are mostly used to show any emotion in the artists face or any detail
surrounding them.
• The way the camera work is used is really important to the music video, if you just
use standard mid shots and close ups with the artist at the center of the frame, then
that will be boring to watch. If you watch something like Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Humble’
music video I think that shows a really good example of how good camera work can
be in music videos, one part in particular that stands out is when the camera itself is
moving around the frame, jumping to a bunch of different angles.
• 1:54, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvTRZJ-4EyI

AND CONVENTIONS
• Q2 - Describe and explain the use of editing in music videos, i.e. the types
of shot used with examples to illustrate this
• The song ‘Lucky People’ by Waterparks is an example of a song that only uses editing to
jump between shots, which is what is most commonly found in mainstream music videos.
However the content in the video is engaging enough to keep the viewers watching, they
don’t need to try and do anything fancy with the editing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZoKBdxhXpw
• Most videos that use a lot of editing and special effects are videos that tell a story. The
example that I want to use for this is the video for the song ‘Chlorine’ by twenty one pilots.
While containing some special effects, they know not to overuse them since that would just
make the video seem unrealistic and ugly. When jumping between shots, they seem to keep
in mind the flow of the song, and made every cut go with it. Not only does that blend the
song and video together perfectly, but it also makes the video more pleasing to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJnQBXmZ7Ek
• The most standard use of editing in music videos is where the camera is almost always at a
mid shot, they jump between shots for no reason, nothing is really connected and the artist
is always in the center of the frame, they also use random footage of the artist in different
locations. These are the kinds of videos that are just made because they had to make a
video to promote a single, and didn’t really want to spend too much money on it:

AND CONVENTIONS
• Q3 - Describe and explain some of the technical developments in
music videos, i.e. the types of shot used with examples to illustrate
this
• Some technical developments that come to mind are: the uses of special effects, they
still don’t look perfect in music videos since they obviously don’t have much of a
budget for them compared to something like movies. If you compared the special
effects in something like Linkin Park’s ‘In The End’ which came out in the early 2000’s
compared to a newer music video that uses special effects, like Taylor Swift’s ‘Me!’,
then it will become instantly obvious that special effects have gotten a lot better over
time.
• Another development is the amount of editing that goes into most videos now. The
earliest music videos just have the artist standing in a room and lip syncing the song
into a camera, while the editors just cut between a few shots they have. Or
sometimes they’ll just use footage from a live show. Today we tend to go to a variety
of locations, or we’ll use a green screen.
• We also use a lot more color, if you look at a music video that came out years ago
and compare to a recent one, you should notice how much color is used in the more
recent one.

AND CONVENTIONS
• Q4 – Genre conventions; often music videos adhere to genre conventions within
their visual style and production techniques. Select a recognizable genre and
use illustrations to explain what their genre conventions are…
• I think the genre that stays very true to it’s conventions in terms of it’s music videos, is
rap/hip-hop.
• Since rap has become mainstream, more of the more popular music videos have pretty
much followed the same kind of formula. It’s got the artist being surrounded by a lot of
expensive things., typically cars. Most rappers use the music videos as an excuse to show
off all the things they can afford, and most of the time it goes along with the song. Especially
with how rap is today, most of the more mainstream songs are people just bragging about
how much money they have.
• The camera angles are normally the same, using close ups or mid shots, no special effects
are normally used. Most of the locations are typically the same as well, being an open area
that can fit a lot of people so the cameras can film them jumping around.
• There are a few artists that have broken these conventions though, the one that most
people will go to is Eminem, some of his videos tell a story such as ‘Stan’ or ‘Fall’, and some
of them just make fun of other rap videos showing how generic, and formulaic they are,
often using some camera angles as a segway into a visual joke, while still connecting to the
song, like on the video for ‘Without Me’

AND CONVENTIONS
• Q5 - John Stuart’s description of the music video “incorporating,
raiding and reconstructing” is essentially the essence of
intertextuality [something asserted by Andrew Goodwin]. Can you
explain what intertexuality is and find some examples of it in music
videos?
• Intertextuality is how one media text is referenced in another, for example Led
Zeppelin included a lot of references to ‘Lord of the Rings’ in their music, the song
‘Ramble On’ has a verse where the lead singer meets a girl in the kingdom of Mordor
who is stolen by Gollum, while obviously not accurate to the source material,
intextuality doesn’t need to be.
• Another one is Taylor Swift’s ‘Love Story’ references Romeo and Juliet a few times
throughout the song, and is the main focus of the lyrics and music video. The lyrics
and the video work together and is pretty much a different, less in depth take on the
Romeo and Juliet story.

CASE STUDY- BROCKHAMPTON
Brockhampton is a rap group that identify themselves as a boy band, over the last few years they’ve
gotten a lot of notoriety and have blown up in popularity. What really set them of was a trilogy of
albums they released across 2017, named ‘Saturation’.
Their music videos are known to be abstract as well, some of them can be grouped in with the rest of
the modern rap music videos. However most of them are so different to what else is released today,
you can’t help but appreciate how abstract they are. Any intertextuality in the videos is mostly found in
the lyrics.
- Face
The ‘Face’ music video (top right) is one of the more recent videos the group has released, and is one
of the more abstract ones. The video jumps between normal pacing and being sped up, the times
where the video is sped up is when there’s more then one person on screen, the person who’s singing
is paced normally but everything around them is sped up. The video relies a lot on close ups and mid
shots, at the start of the video it’s close up’s of the members who are singing, but as the video goes
on, we get mid shots of the artist in the center of the frame, while people jump around, destroy houses
and cars behind them without really caring all that much, which could be connected to the songs
meaning which is about relationships. The only real editing is the use of time lapse to make everything
speed up, and the obvious jump cuts.
- Sweet
The unique thing about this music video is, it all takes place in one shot, they don’t use any jump cuts
and as a result the video is really smooth and flows really well with the pacing of the song. Something
that really stands out to me with this video is how the lighting works, there’s a clear contrast of a dark
half and a light half, the group flows into both half's a few times throughout the video, which could be a
visual representation of how each member jumps to a different mood, some of them are more
laidback, whereas some of them are much more energetic and exaggerate facial expressions. This is
a more conventional rap video, since it’s got all the members and extras stood around the camera,
jumping around and doing typical rap video things, it does match the up beat sound of the song
though.
The whole video is a mix between mid shots and close ups. A good example of this is at 4:13 onwards
- Boy Bye
‘Boy Bye’ is one of Brockhampton’s more fast paced music videos and isn’t really what you’d expect
from a rap video, which does a good job a complementing how fast paced the beat to the song is.
There’s a lot that goes on in this music video and it can be difficult to understand at times. The video
starts off simple enough with a few members in a brighter setting, there’s more jump cuts in the first
half of this video then what is normally expected from Brockhampton. The camera angles are unique
here though, at the start of the video there’s a shot of one of the members looking ‘up’ at the camera
giving the impression that we’re looking down on him, but as the camera pans out it’s shown that he’s
actually leaning on a wall sideways, and we’re at a normal mid shot. There’s more interesting shots
that they’ve used for this video. Like the one pictured (third image) the lighting is so different compared
to what we’ve seen in the video so far, they switched to this when the member started talking about a

CASE STUDY- BROCKHAMPTON
- I Been Born Again
Another video that takes the typical rap formula and flips it on it’s head, the video
starts out standard enough, it’s an extreme close up of one of the members, but
as they move away from the camera it’s revealed that the video is being shot at a
really low angle, like we’ve been dropped on the floor, we see some other
members or extras in the background but they don’t look like they’re supporting
the artist like they normally do in a rap video. When the video it’s the 0:50 mark
the camera starts rotating across the ground, like the world keeps flipping and
turning around, it’s a really unique camera movement that not many music videos
do. As soon as the camera moves closer to what looks like a body, one of the
members pick up the camera and starts doing their verse, almost as if to cover
something up.
They put the camera down and the video carries on as normal, everyone goes
and follows the camera and by the end of the video everyone is surrounding it,
like in a typical rap video. There are some jump cuts to some of the members
gathered in a doorway, where the only lighting is a really bright white screen
behind them.
The entire video is shot in black and white, which compliments the darker and
slower tone of the video. Like in some of their other videos, a lot of this takes
place in one shot.
- New Orleans
The music video for ‘New Orleans’ is probably the most conventional music video
that Brockhampton has done. There isn’t too much going on that could have a
double entendre, it’s just a video of the group in a room and they’re preforming for
their fans. They all gather around the camera and jump around a lot. The shot
they use the most are close ups, there are some mid shots though, like when one
of the members run up to the camera from a crowd behind them at 2:26.
There are some technical and clever shots used as well, early on in the music
video there’s a shot where some of the members cast a shadow on the curtain
behind them, the shadows at some point merge and join in with the shadow the
crowd is casting, it’s really simple but it looks really good and adds something to
the video.
The video does a great job at capturing how fast paced and energetic the beat is,

LINKS
• Face- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nWYiEq4wd0
• Sweet- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nDsnJH30fs
• Boy Bye- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQoN8Daltfc
• I Been Born Again-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzgCm2Z66aY
• New Orleans-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CfWTV5kQUM

Music video assignment 01

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Music video assignment 01