Music Video introduction blog task

 This week's work requires Media Factsheet #69: Music Video. You'll need to log in to Google using your Greenford Google account to access this. Read the factsheet and answer the following 10 questions:

1) What is the purpose of a music video?

The purpose of a music video is to sell products, the most obvious of which is the song featured in the video. However, other connected products are also marketed by a music video.

2) How has the digital age changed the production and distribution of music videos?

However, the development of new media technologies meant that music videos, and the songs along with them, were more widely available at any time. Videos could be uploaded to video hosting sites like YouTube and viewed using portable media devices such as mobile phones and iTouch devices, allowing audiences to see the video and hear the song whenever and wherever they liked.

3) Which three major record labels are behind VEVO? What is VEVO and why was it created?

In America, three major record companies, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Abu Dhabi Media (along with content licensed by EMI), have also launched Vevo, a video hosting site specifically for music videos. The content of Vevo is syndicated to YouTube in the UK with YouTube and Google receiving a share of advertising revenue for directing users to the official versions of music videos rather than those uploaded by a third party.

4) What are the key conventions of a music video?

Movement, Narrative, Band or Artist, Lip-syncing, Intertextuality, Performance and Sound.

5) How can narrative be used in music video? Give an example of a music video that uses a narrative.

Narrative can be used in music to help make the understanding of the video better. This is because if there was only just music and just performance going on in a music video that would be good but if there was no narrative to it then it could leave some viewers disheartened.  

An example of this is Bad Boys from Wham.

6) What examples are provided in the factsheet for intertextuality in music videos?

Intertextuality - When one media texts references another. 

Such references may be very obvious, such as the way that the Blink 182 video for All the Small Things makes references to videos by pop artists such as Back Street Boys (I Want it That Way) and Christina Aguilera (Genie in a Bottle) by directly copying scenes.

7) Why do audiences enjoy intertextual references in media products?

Audiences enjoy intertextual references as it provides us with a sense of pleasure to look at a text and know and understand that aspects of it have been taken from other cultural contexts that we are familiar with and creates a connection between us as the audience and the text that has included intertextual references.

8) Read the music video example analysis on page 3 of the factsheet. Select a music video of your own choice for each of the following headings and explain how each one links to the heading:

• Conventions (movement/narrative/artist)

In Michael Jacksons' Thriller there is a lot of conventions such as movement and a whole narrative as when MJ is dancing with the zombies and then later on follows the narrative of the girl he is with who is scared of her life running away from the horde of zombies. 

• Intertextuality  

In Boyzone's When The Going Gets Tough they use intertextuality as they are using another persons song (Billy Oceans) When The Going Get's Tough. 

• Representation

In Enimen's The Real Slim Shady, the camera is mainly always on Enimen as he is the main image in the music video with his short blonde hair as that was his trademark look back in the 90's and in any other music video he had that would always be his hair colour during then. 

• Audience< 

In 911's Bodyshaking the target audience for this song is aimed mainly at young women and relationships as they are singing a love song with them saying lyrics such as "You got my body shaking sends a shiver to my soul...I got my secret weapon, I'm gonna get you alone, yeah yeah" which can connote some sexual references and can be aimed towards women as well.  

9) Watch the video for Ice Cube's It Was A Good Day (1993). How did this video set the conventions for later hip-hop music videos?

This brilliantly laid out video set major conventions for other hip hop videos such as the car Ice Cube was driving with the front tyres making his car go up and down in a giddy way whenever he would start it back up making it look like the car had a life of his own. We later on see this same car technique used in another later hip hop video of Snoop Dogg Still Dr.D.R.E . 

10) How important do you think music videos are in the marketing and promotion of music artists today? Are music videos still essential to a band or artist's success? You need to form your own opinion here.

Yes I very much think so that music videos are still essential and important for a band or artists success because without a music video then you won't have as much of a big audience viewing your music video then you wish. Also, the rise of technology means that everyone is using the internet  and their devices more and more frequently now meaning that artists need a music video so they can connect to their fans online so that then they don't fall behind and lose fame or attention to other competing music artists.