Genre Theory

Genre- Critical tool that helps us study texts and audience responses of texts.

Daniel Chandler(2001) argues that the word comes form the French and originally Latin word for 'kind' or 'class'. 
       All genres have sub-genres. Divided up into more specific catergories that allow audiences to identify them speciffically. (Barry Keith Grant) For example Sci-fi can have sub genres such as fairytale and dystopia meaning that they have slightly different qualities of a typical Sci-fi film.

Steve Neale(1995) Stresses that 'genres are not 'systems' they are processes of systematization i.e. They are dynamic and evolve over time.

Jason Mittel(2001) argues that genres are cultural catergories that surpass the boundries of media texts and operate within industry, audience and cultural practises as well.
    Industries use genre to sell products to audiences)

Pleasure of genre for audience

• Emotional
• Physical
• Interlectual

Stregnths of genre theory

• Everybody uses and understands
• Use it to study media texts
• The media industry uses it to develop the market texts.

Genre development- Christian Metz (Language and Cinema)

• Experimental stage
• Classic stage
• Parody stage
• Deconstrution stage

Music video-medium with many sub-genres/post modern styles.
      Intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures.
      Called pop-promos (Used to promote band or artist)
      Post modern texts whos main purpose is to promote a star persona

David Bordwell- "Any theme may appear in any genre" For example, romance can appear in different genres such as horror, comedy or Sci-fi.

Duality of man/Personal journey

Themes-Teen angst, rebellion, romance, sex, nostalgia, nihilism, coming of age rituals, tribalsim and bullying.

David Buckingham- "Genre is not...simply 'given' by the culture, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change.

Audience Theory

Blumler and Katz uses the gratification theory.
       My sisters keeper:

• Sad but happy
• A bit angry
• Greatful

Passive audience- Just take it in, cant choose what is on the news.
Active audience Can choose what we want to watch. (Watch horror movies to make us scared, watch comedys to make us laugh)

4 different needs:

• Surveillance (awearness)
• Personal Identity (rolde models, who we are)
• Perosnal relstionships (We can form relationship with media, characters)
• Diversion (Escapism)

Stuart Hall- Media texts are encoded by the producer meaning that whoever produces the texts fills the product with values and messages.

Dominant- Audience agree with the message and ideology. Will view the message in the way the producer wanted them to.

Negotiated- Compramise between the dominant and oppositional readings. Audience agrees with the producer but also have thier input.

Oppositional- The audience rejects the preffered reading and creates thier own reading. Audience rejects the meaning fully.

How may an audience have a dominant undertanding of your product?

• Clear messages
• Audience is the same age so relates to product
• From the same culture
• Easy to understand the narrative.

How may and audience have a negotiated reading of your product?

• Audience may not have had the same life experiences
• May not understand the narrative

How may an audience have an oppositional understanding of your product?

• Product has controversial themes
• Disagree with messages in the video
• Dislike the genre

Hypodermic Needle Theory

Misinterpretation- miss the point.

• We have choice now
• We have opinions
• Earliest theory
• propaganda of WW1(effects)
• Influences
• More channels on TV now
• Mass hysteria

Mass media has had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences.

1930's radio broadcast 'War of the worlds' was performed like a real news broadcast to heighten the effect of the story, people thought it was real and assumed mars had come to invade the world. (Passive audience)

Not everyone consumes media in the same way. Audiences are not simply passive as proved by up to date theories.

Narrative Theory

 

Different types of narrative.

Tim O'sullivan(1998) said that the media text reflects the setting and tells us some kind of story. They also have a purpose for example horror films test our fears and scare us which is shown through by using music, pauses and pace to make us jump. They are set in 'scary' places such as haunted houses, abandoned buildings and woods which make us weary of them.
     On the other hand, Sci-fi films are usually set on other planets, in spaceships or in futuristic surroundings which relfects the fact it is about aliens or supernatural things. For example the film 'Inception' is about a man who can enter the minds of people and steal thier secrets, even though we know this cannot happen in real life,  and is set in a futuristic version of earth therefore we can tell it is Sci-fi.

Kate Domaile- Every story ever told can be fitted into one of eight narrative types:

Archilles-The fatal flaw (Superman)
Candide- The indomitable hero (Indiana Jones)
Cinderella-The dream comes true (Pretty Woman)
Circe-The chase (The Terminator)
Faust-Selling your soul (Devil's Advocate)
Orpheus-The loss of something personal (The sixth sense)
Romeo and Juliet-The love story (Titanic)
Tristan and Iseult-The love triangle (Casablanca)

Sven Carlson suggests that music videos, in general, fall into two catergories, performance clips and conceptual clips.

   For example the music video for Ed Sheeran's song 'One' is of Ed Sheeran playing his guitar along to the song se we can see him performing it. Where as the video for 'Dont judge me' by Chris Brown (Shown below) is conceptual because it tells the story of him going into the army to do a misson.

     He said that the common places to record are recording studios, bath tub, streets and parks.
Art clip-No perceptible visual narrative and contains no lip syncing.

Pam Cook- The standard hollywood narrative structure should have:

1. Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution.
2. A high degree of narrative closure.
3. A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially goverened by spatial and temporal coherance.

Equilibrium-Disruption-Quest-Resolution

Barthes(1977) Narative works with five different codes and the enigma code works to keep up setting problems or puzzles for the audience.

Claude Levi'Strauss(1958) Narative amounts to that fact he believed all stories operated to certain clear binary opposites e.g. good VS. evil, black VS. white, rich VS. poor etc.
        -Essentially complicated world is reduced to be simple.

The meaning of 'The Writer'

""The Writer" is the most personal and emotional song I've written yet. It's about how you'd do anything and change absolutely everything about yourself if necessary, just to be noticed by this one person."

This is a quote said by Ellie Goulding herself about her song 'The Writer'. The song is about how people will change themselves to be exactly what the person they love wants them to be. You can tell this from the lyrics because she say's "Why dont you be the artist? And make me out of clay?" which means she is asking the boy to create a perfect image of the girl he would want to be with so she can turn herself into that image. I am going to show this in my video by having my actor doing her make up and trying on different outfits in a mirror with a spot light on her and smoke to create atmosphere. You will see the transformation of how she looks normally to how she looks when she transforms herself.

Conventions of form and genre.

Looking at other students work

We looked at some music videos that past students had made that weren't successful in meeting the marking criteria.

The first video was unsuccessful because the lighting was too dark so it was hard to see at was going on, they didn't have a narrative which made the video look unplanned and the sound didn't match the shots which made it look messy and unprofessional.
   The second video was unsuccessful because the acting in it was bad since they lacked facial expressions and enthusiasm. The shots were out of time with the music which again made it look rushed. The use of green screen was poor because you could tell that they weren't really in that location when they could have easily filmed the footage at the location anyway. The framing of the shots were bad because the actors hands or end of the guitar was cut off some of the shots which shows they haven't practised framing. The props and costume weren't conventional because the genre was rock however they were wearing just plain outfits such as white top and jeans where as rock would usually be a leather jacket and black make up.
    The last video was unsuccessful because the shots were too long which made it boring to watch, the acting again was bad because the actor kept their head down throughout the video, the narrative was confusing and the flashes didn't match the beat of the music.

We then watched a video that was very successful in meeting the grading criteria.

Firstly the video had good editing that was varied throughout using slow motion, rewind and zooms. They used 3 different locations which were relevant to the narrative and 3 different outfits that were all thought out and planned to fit with the lyrics. The shots were all short too which made the video fun to watch and kept me engaged. The student had used a dancer to be the main artist in the video which really stood out from the other videos because it wasn't just a lip syncing video. The actor also gave a great performance by really using facial expressions and gestures towards the camera.

Exisitng music videos

I looked at some existing and current music videos to see what patterns and conventions occur.

Firstly I looked at 'Don't Judge Me' by Chris Brown.

In this video you can tell what the genre is straight away because he is wearing timberland boots, a tight top and chains which shows his genre is pop/R&B. The video has a narrative that you follow throughout the song which is relevant to the lyrics. The costume and props are all relevant because the story is that Chris saves the world from aliens invading earth through a suicide mission. He is wearing khaki trousers and military boots to represent that he is in the army. I like this music video because the tension of the narrative and music built throughout which kept me engaged. The use of slow motion added to the mood.

I also looked at 'Its Time' however I feel it wasn't very conventional. Firstly the beat of the music was really fast but the edits were slow so they didn't match. The mood of the song also sounds quite upbeat and happy where as the lighting was really dark and all they were doing was walking across desert. I found it quite boring to watch because the edits and locations were simple and weren't really relevant to the narrative.

 

I also looked at some older music videos and videos from different genres to compare the patterns and conventions.

What makes a good music video

What do you think makes a good music video?

-Relevant props, costume and location
-Smooth transitons
-Relevant to lyrics
-Relevant to audience
-Range of editing

What main conventions form a music video?

-Having a band or artist
-Music
-Storyline/Narrative
-Editing matches rhythm and beat
-Backing dancers/Extras to support artist.
-Lip Syncing
-Mise-en-scene

History of medium

Music videos became popular around the 1980's however they date back much further. Prior to the 1980's music videos were described as various terms such as 'Illustrated song', 'promotional film' or 'song video, this is because they were part of a film so the only way you could see your favourite artist or band was to watch them in a movie at the cinema, therefore access to watching music videos was very limited.

I watched a music video, "We're all going n a summer holiday" by Cliff Richard, which was in colour and part of a film. It was released in February 1963 and was the second most popular video at the British box office. The video portrays that Cliff Richard is a bubbly and fun family man which gives him a good image in the media. We can see this because he is smiling and waving at the children as he drives past, He is also going on a trip to France to go to the seaside which shows he is family orientated.

         I then watched a music video by 'The Beatles' called 'Hard days night'. It was filmed in black and white which is cheaper to produce and create. This video was the first music video to be filmed as an original song written by The Beatles themselves which was unusual as most artists and bands did covers of songs. This was appealing to the public which gave them good media coverage and a good image. This video also represents what the band are like since they are portrayed as being cheeky and mischievous as they try to get away from the women.

 

 

The Australian TV shows countdown sounds both premiered in 1974 and was significant in developing music videos. Former DJ Graham Webb launched a weekly TV music show for teens which screened popular songs on a Sunday. It was later shortened to be called ‘Sounds’. The company approached Russel Mulcahy and asked him to film footage to accompany the songs. The British TV show ‘Top of the pops’ began playing music videos in the late 1970’s. Sales for songs started to become big as many people wanted to see the video again the next week.

     In 1975 music videos had become increasingly popular and technology had advanced. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen was released in 1975 and was the first video to be filmed in video rather than film, which made the quality much better. The video is over 6 minutes long and uses a range of techniques, conventions and affects such as varied camera shots, locations and costumes. By this time music videos had become more conventional and appealing to an audience. The video for 'Another brick in the wall' by Pink Floyed was released in 1979 and reached number one due to its abstract qualities. The video was about a protest of boarding schools.They used masks to represent the children and had them walk like robots to show that they are being controlled. Using different techniques made the video really interesting to watch.

 

     Video concert hall, created by Jerry Crowe and Charles Henderson, launched the first nationwide music video programme on American television, predating MTV by three years.

   In 1981 MTV launched ‘Video killed the radio star’ which started an era of 24/7 music on television. Many popular acts such as Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran and Madonna became very successful through their seductive appeal of their videos. One of the reasons music videos became successful is through the development of recording and editing equipment and the use of visual effects such as image compositioning. Directors began to explore different forms and style of genre using effects, mixing film and video and adding a narrative to the music video.

    In 1983 the most successful and influential music video of all time was released. Micheal Jacksons ‘Thriller’ cost around $800,000 to make. Around this time, many more music channels had been created which played different genres of music 24 hours a day which was beneficial to the public since they could choose what music they wanted to listen too.  

      In just a few years music videos advanced even more and so did access to them. There are now many more channels showing different genres of music such as 4Music, VIVA, Scuzz and Kerrang.  In 2005 a website called ‘YouTube’ was launched which made the viewing of online video much faster and easier. Yahoo, FaceBook and MySpace use similar technology. Some artists began to see success as a result. For example the band ‘OK go’ achieved fame through two of their songs ‘A million ways’ and ‘Here it goes again’ both of which became well known online. In 2009 Thirty Seconds To Mars music video ‘Kings and Queens’ was uploaded to YouTube and generated over 40 million views on the same day.

    Various independent filmmakers began recording live sessions to present on the web and are made with minimal budgets and share similar techniques as the lo-fi music movement of the early nineties. This helped independent artists and bands to present themselves to a wider audience.

     The transition from the first music video to music videos now is huge since the technology has advanced majorly through the use of camera skills and accessibility. The hypodermic needle theory can be applied here since when music videos first came about we didnt have a choice what we watched, we had to watch whatever was on the TV at that time. The channels also went off at a certain time on the night so there was nothing to watch on the TV until the morning. The music channel by Graham Webb showed the popular artists and songs of that time and because it was the only music channel people didnt have a choice, if they wanted to listen to music thye would have to watch whatever Graham was playing. This creates a mass audience because they are essentially 'forced' into watching it. However since the development of technology and communication we have a much wider variety of ways we can consume music therefore we can choose what genre/ band/ song we listen to.
      Music videos are continuing to develop and improve to make them more visually appealing. 'Chandelier' by Sia was released in 2014 and became popular very quickly. The song details the demoralisation and rationalism of alcoholism through the use of contemprary dance therefore has a lyrical narrative whilst being visually appealing.

 

Brief and Ancillary texts

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• A website homepage for the band.
• A cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package).
• A magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package). 

I am going to a cover for the CD and a magazine advertisement because I can use my knowledge of using photoshop to help me. I also can use my knowledge of creating a music magazine and apply it to make it better.