Digipak's

Digipak is a patented style of CD or DVD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI World Ltd., and Atlas Holdings company. 

Above is an example of a 6 panel digipak. This is a standard, typical format one would find a 6 panel digipak to look like. They mostly come in this layout, however they can differ. 

Digipaks typically consist of a book-style paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Since Digipaks were among the first alternates to jewel cases to be used by major record companies, and because there is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies, the term Digipak is often used generically, even when the media holder is a hub rather than a full plastic tray. 

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak (DVDigipak) is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets. Such packaging is less resistant to abrasion than jewel cases, so it tends to show signs of wear relatively quickly. Licensed digipak manufacturers such as domestic U.S. printer and disc replicator Oasis Disc Manufacturing recommend coating the raw printed paper with a protective UV coating, thus ensuring greater longevity.

Although less vulnerable to cracking than a jewel case, the disc tray inside the package (particularly the "teeth" of the hub which secure the disc in place) remains rather brittle and is prone to cracking if the package is crushed. Digipak-style cases grew in popularity among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s. Folk band Show of Hands were one of their first bands to use a digipak, on their 1997 album Dark Fields. The band stopped using digipaks but upon the release of Cold Cuts in 2002, they have used them ever since.

Manufacturers have sought to reduce environmental impact and improve functionality by introducing recycled components into its trays; one has announced a 100% post-consumer PET tray made from recycled bottles, which also eliminates the need for the brittle "teeth". Many printers use recycled or sustainable material for the board stock.

Historically, Digipak was only available in large quantities. However, AGI has recently introduced a new product called digipak i-create for the consumer market. Digipak i-create is a web-supported concept that is aimed at music, photo and creative markets.

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

Stop motion (also known as stop action) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. 

Stop motion is often confused with the time-lapse technique, where still photographs of a live surrounding are taken at regular intervals, and combined into a continuous film.

*The video was shot all stills – roughly 3225 still photos for the entire video, using one camera, hanging from the ceiling for the main body of the movie.
* It took 4 weeks before shooting to create an animated computer generated storyboard for the video, with 3d dummies for the characters.
* It took only 2 days of shooting for the live actors on set to re-create the 3.5 minutes computer sequence, frame by frame.
* Some of the bed sheets used in the video were taken from Oren’s own bedroom and are now considered collectors items, worth at the moment not very much and therefore used as bed sheets.
* Each of the wonderfully talented people above have worked on the video for a fraction of their normal rates (except Oren who worked for his normal rate of zero).

Music Video Director: Jake Nava

Auteur theory is a personal creative vision ,style or feature that is on going throughout the directors work. This establishes the director and makes their film or video recognisable. 


The BFI Teaching Auteur study guide defines auteur theory as "a filmaker who makes films with an individual style","a filmaker who makes films with similar themes" and "a filmaker who demonstrates technical excellence".The music video director I chose to discuss is Jake Nava whom I believe best demonstrates all of the above quotations.

Inspiration - Ke$ha

The way her red lips are conveyed to stand out, I find quite interesting. We hope to do similar but we want the sunglasses to stand out rather than the lips. However, the conceptual idea is the same. 

Inspiration - Music Video

This really inspired me mainly through the way they've made sure the simplicity is not boring. This is our key aim to ensure we create something simple but guarantee that it is exciting and memorable. 
The record label for this song is "Fueled by Ramen" who are a low budgeted company - similar to us. This allows us to gain ideas from this as it may be more realistic, than other music videos, for us to carry out. 
The video is very fun, not too complicated and does not situate in numerous locations. The main shots are taken on an average street, on top of a car and in a pawn shop. This is another aspect that is similar to us, as we do not wish to locate ours in too many places. This is because it gets too confusing and hard to cope with. By doing it in less sites, we are able to focus properly on the scenes and make them the top priority. This will achieve a high quality video rather than focusing too much on where we wish to shoot.
Some of the special effects I liked and hope to do something along the lines of that, when it comes to editing, are; Adam Levine only being shown through the television screens in the pawn shop, the way they have made the shadows formulate a conceptual idea and the use of stop motion in the shadows. 

Problems That Have Arised

• Due to the large production team we hope to encounter, it has been difficult to get everyone together and finalise one day to do some of the filming. 
• Organising the costumes has been complicated as there will be a large amount of people taking part in the music video. 
• Choosing the correct people for the correct roles was quite a dilemma. 
• Since we are primarily shooting the music video in the school premises, we need certain areas of the school for a couple of days, so this may be an issue sorting out which days we are able to do it. 
• We need more than one camera person as we wish to record from different angles and shots with each scene. This has been tricky as we need to organise 3 - 4 cameras or good quality, not forgetting we need 3 - 4 people recording too. 
• We also needed to shoot the close-up of the main artist again with a better quality camera, to ensure the audience could recognise immediately who the lead singer is. 

Andrew Goodwin's 6 Point Analysis

Andrew Goodwin identifies six features of music videos, these being:
1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performances in rock band videos, or dance routines in girl pop bands.)

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop a visual style that recur across their work.

5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6. There is often intertextual reference (e.g. films, TV programs, other music videos etc)

Richard Dyer's Star Theory

Richard W. Dyer is an English academic specialising in cinema. Since 2006 he is a Professor of Film Studies at King's College London. Previously he was at the University of Warwick. His work is describes as "emphasising the aesthetic and historical specificity of cultural texts."


Stars' was Dyer's first full book. In it he developed the idea that the viewers' perception of a film is heavily influenced by the perception of its stars, and that publicity materials and reviews determine the way that audiences experience the film. 


His theory suggests a 'star's' construction takes several forms:


The Star is a Construction:

The image of the star has been developed by the star themselves and/or the management team across a wide range of media (advertising etc). It helps if the star has a USP (unique selling point) for example, Lady Gaga's range of headpieces, Madonna's Leotards etc, this construction brings with it connotations of the artist i.e. Lady's Gaga's hats suggest she is eccentric and wants to stand out from the crowd, whereas Madonna's leotards show she wants to be a voyeuristic icon who relates best to the 70/80's style of dress as this was her best era for music.


The Star is a Commodity:

A record company will listen very closely to audience demands and will construct stars that will appeal to the likes and tastes of various different audiences. Stars are constructed to meet audience demand, for example, Girls Aloud were constructed to appeal to a female audience who would most likely try and copy the band's fashion and dance moves. Whereas the Kings of Leon were constructed to appeal to more grungy and down to earth audiences of both males and females.


The Star is an Ideology:


The star represents a set of values and attitudes that reflect audiences own values. For example, Miley Cyrus gained lots of media attention after claiming she is a virgin and wouldn't have sex till she is married - young girl audiences might follow her lead and this could be beneficial to society and its problem of underage sex etc.
Stars are very often connected to religious and/or moral beliefs which connect them to their audiences, an example being Eminem's raps about his life.

The Auteur Theory

Auteur simply means "author" in French. In film criticism, auteur theory holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if they were the primary "auteur." In film criticism, the 1950s-era auteur theory holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision. Auteur theory has influenced film criticism since 1954, when it was advocated by film director and critic 'François Truffaut'. "Auteurism" is the use of auteur theory to analyze films or to understand the characteristics that identify the director as auteur.
Auteur Theory suggests that the best films will bear their maker’s ‘signature’. This may manifest itself as the stamp of his or her individual personality or perhaps even focus on recurring themes within the body of work. Alfred Hitchcock plays this idea up in most of his movies where he makes sure that he appears on screen in a brief cameo spot. Supporters of the auteur theory further contend that the most cinematically successful films will bear the unmistakable personal stamp of the director.

Prop List

Prop list:

The judging panel:

3 cameras

2 school tables

4 small whiteboards and 4 whiteboard pens for judging panel to score acts

The judge:

Gravel for judge

The chav:

Makeup bag for chav

Mirror for chav

The crazy scientist:

Science lab coat for the crazy scientist

Rule for crazy scientist

Acid, test tubes and test tube rack for crazy scientist

A large sized whiteboard for crazy scientist

The rock star:

Shot glasses for rock star

Order of Auditions

As a group, we decided to make an order of all the auditions we were doing on the day of our filming. This enables us to have an understnading of what we are doing at what time. The list is present below: 

1.     Spice Girls

2.     George playing guitar

3.     Romeo and Juliet

4.     Fruit & Gorilla scene

5.     Geek

6.     Clown

7.     Cheerleaders

8.     Singing

9.     Baby grow

10. Michael Jackson

11. Dancer

12. Cheap HP people

13. Chicken & Egg

14. Exercise boys

15. Actual Band/Dream sequence ending 

Issues we have come across in the creative process and changes that have been made throughout

Although we have not had the misfortune of having to drastically change our ideas, we find that minor aspects are being altered so they fit more easily with the pop genre and to make them more appropriate for our video.

Our initial ideas, which revolved around a school talent show as opposed to a general talent show were edited as to ensure we could include a wide range of acts of all ages, i.e. the baby grow scene as well as the Old Spice Girls. In these early creative segments we were originally to have only one judge, a mad teacher who would be tied up at the end of the video to show the rebellious children getting fed up of  the grumpy teacher who didn't approve of any of the acts. This idea developed into a judging panel, reflecting popular talent show competitions such as Britain's got talent. With this adaption of the judging panel we were then in possession of four judges: a court judge, a mad scientist, a chav and a statue. However, this statue idea had to be edited as we found we would actually have to paint every inch of someone to resemble a statue. We, therefore, transformed this judge into a rock star.

Another aspects of our video which we had to alter due to the lack of costumes available for it was the fruit fight which was initially between a banana and an orange. However, we were unable to find an orange suit and therefore the fight will commence between two bananas, which still allows for a large amount of comic effect.

There is also a rather inappropriate line in the song "pose for the boys in the nude" which we clearly cannot convey in the visuals of our video and so we find that in the case visuals and audio will not relfect each other.

The Trip

As a media student I visited Rich Mix with my media group as part of a school trip. This helped us all with our coursework and allowed us to attain deeper knowledge on music videos as a whole. We were honoured to be able to watch well-established music videos from the 1930's onwards and we saw how they progressed over time. The presenters gave us a greater understanding on the production side behind music videos - what the audience does not see. This included things such as; production cost, the cast & crew needed, the permission to carry out certain things, make sure it is not copyrighted, the permission to use the chosen location, ensure it attracts the demographics and much more. Many things I had never realised one would need to go through this before proceeding. It made me realise how tough and time-consuming it is to make a music video. It requires a group effort otherwise it does not meet the high standards. The work load needs to be split up between the production team in order to make it possible to go further. 
The presenters showed us several music videos from different time periods and they told us a bit about their history. Then they explained how long, how much and how they produced it all. I found this very interesting as I had never been to anything like this before, so I was able to gain further knowledge to help me with this coursework. 

Music Video Director Essay

Demographic

Hello, My name is Jack Daley and I am live in Southampton. The genre I enjoy listening to, is both a fusion of Indie and Pop music. For example Indie bands that I like are ‘The Ting Tings’, ‘The Bird and the Bee’ and ‘Dash and Will’. I also enjoy listening to pop music by artists such as ‘Beyonce’, ‘Justin Bieber’ and ‘Michael Jackson’ as they are heavily involved within the genre of Pop. I regularly listen to radio stations such as ‘Capital Fm’ and ‘BBC Radio 1’ when I’m either in the car or at home as they tend to play the songs I am interested in. I love watching music channels such as ‘Viva’, ‘VH1’ and ‘MTV Dance’. I tend to use the Internet regularly to read up on the new bands and new music that existing bands and artists are releasing. I don’t really purchase music but listen to music from YouTube and transfers the songs by YouTube convertor onto my iPod. 

Process of making a music video

Commissioning editor
Selecting Production companies/directors
Creating treatments and pitches
Estimating a budget
Decide where each proportion of the money goes
Pre-production and personnel involved
The shot
The edit
Post-production work and delivery

The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star Rise of MTV

In 1981, the U.S. video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed the Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing.

Two key innovations in the development of the modern music video were the development of relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use video recording and editing equipment, and the development of visual effects created with techniques such as image compositing. The advent of high-quality color videotape recorders and portable video cameras coincided with the DIY ethos of the New Wave era, enabling many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply, in comparison to the relatively high costs of using film. However, as the genre developed, music video directors increasingly turned to 35 mm film as the preferred medium, while others mixed film and video. During the 1980s, music videos had become de rigueur for most recording artists. The phenomenon that was famously parodied by BBC television comedy program Not The Nine O'Clock News who produced a spoof music video "Nice Video, Shame About The Song". The genre was also parodied by Frank Zappa in his satirical 1984 song "Be In My Video".

In this period, directors and the acts they worked with began to explore and expand the form and style of the genre, using more sophisticated effects in their videos, mixing film and video, and adding a storyline or plot to the music video. Occasionally videos were made in a non-representational form, in which the musical artist was not shown. Because music videos are mainly intended to promote the artist, such videos are comparatively rare; three early 1980s examples are Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City", directed by Arnold Levine, David Mallet's video for David Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure", and Ian Emes' video for Duran Duran's "The Chauffeur".

In 1983, the most successful and influential music video of all time was released — the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller". The video set new standards for production, having cost US$500,000 to film.That video, along with earlier videos by Jackson for his songs "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", also was instrumental in getting music videos by African American artists played on MTV. Earlier, such videos had been rare: according to MTV, this was because it initially conceived itself as a rock-music-oriented channel, although musician Rick James was outspoken in his criticism of the cable channel, claiming in 1983 that MTV's refusal to air the music video for his song "Super Freak" and clips by other African-American performers was "blatant racism".

The Canadian music channel MuchMusic was launched in 1984. In 1984, MTV also launched the MTV Video Music Awards (later to be known as the VMA's), an annual awards event that would come to underscore MTV's importance in the music industry.

In 1985, MTV launched the channel VH1 (then known as "VH-1: Video Hits One"), featuring softer music, and meant to cater to an older demographic than MTV. MTV Europe was launched in 1987, and MTV Asia in 1991. Another important development in music videos was the launch of The Chart Show on the UK's Channel 4 in 1986. This was a program which consisted entirely of music videos (the only outlet many videos had on British TV at the time without presenters. Instead, the videos were linked by then state of the art computer graphics. The show moved to ITV in 1989.

The video for the 1985 Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" made pioneering use of computer animation, and helped make the song an international hit. Ironically, the song itself was a ironic comment on the music-video phenomenon, sung from the point of view of an appliance deliveryman both drawn to and repelled by the outlandish images and personalities that appeared on MTV. In 1986, Peter Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer" used special effects and animation techniques developed by British studio Aardman Animation. The video for "Sledgehammer" would go on to be a phenomenal success and win nine MTV Video Music Awards.

In 1988, the MTV show Yo! MTV Raps debuted; the show helped to bring hip-hop music to a mass audience for the first time.

Taken from Wikipedia

Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues (w/ lyrics)

he monochrome 1966 clip for Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" filmed by D. A. Pennebaker was featured in Pennebaker's Dylan film documentary Dont Look Back. Eschewing any attempt to simulate performance or present a narrative, the clip shows Dylan standing in a city back alley, silently shuffling a series of large cue cards (bearing key words from the song's lyrics). Many "song films"—often referred to as "filmed inserts" at that time—were produced by UK artists so they could be screened on TV when the bands were not available to appear live. 

Neil Sedaka "Calendar Girl" (Scopitone)

Scopitone is a type of jukebox featuring a 16 mm film component. Scopitone films were a forerunner of music videos. The Italian Cinebox/Colorama and Color-Sonics were competing, lesser-known technologies of the time.

Based on technology developed during World War II, color 16 mm film clips with a magnetic soundtrack were designed to be shown in a specially designed jukebox. The first Scopitones were made in France, by a company called Cameca on Blvd Saint Denis in Courbevoie near Paris.

Scopitones spread to West Germany, where the Kessler Sisters burst out of twin steamer trunks to sing "Quando Quando" on the dim screen that surmounted the jukebox. Scopitone went on to appear in bars in England, including a coffee bar in Swanage where Telstar was a favourite. By 1964, approximately 500 machines were installed in the USA.

The biggest musical stars of the 1960s were never released on the Scopitone. Several well-known acts of the 1960s appear in Scopitone films, however, ranging from the earlier part of the decade The Exciters ("Tell Him") and Neil Sedaka ("Calendar Girl") to Procol Harum ("A Whiter Shade of Pale") later on. In one Scopitone recording, Dionne Warwick lay on a white shag rug with an offstage fan urging her to sing "Walk On By". Another had Nancy Sinatra and a troupe of go-go girls shimmy to "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". Inspired by burlesque, blonde bombshell Joi Lansing performed "Web of Love" and "The Silencer", and Julie London sang "Daddy" against a backdrop of strippers.

By the end of the 1960s, the popularity of the Scopitone had faded. The last film for a Scopitone was made at the end of 1978. However, in 2006 the French singer Mareva Galanter released several videos which mimic the Scopitone style. Galenta's album Ukuyéyé features several songs in the French Yé-yé style. She also recently hosted a weekly French television program called "Do you do you Scopitone" on the Paris Première channel.

As of the mid-2000s, one of the few Scopitones not in a museum or private collection in the United States was located at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, Tennessee. Many Scopitone films have been released on DVD or made available on the Internet.

Soundies: Jazz, Swing, and Bebop Legends in PBS Documentary

Soundies were an early version of the music video: three-minute musical films, produced in New York City, Chicago, and Hollywood between 1940 and 1946, often including short dance sequences. The completed Soundies were generally released within a few months of their filming; the last group was released in March 1947. The films were displayed on the Panoram, a coin-operated film jukebox or machine music, in nightclubs, bars, restaurants, factory lounges, and amusement centers. Soundies covered all genres of music, from classical to big-band swing, and from hillbilly novelties to patriotic songs. Many nightclub and recording artists also made Soundies, including Gloria Parker, Charles Magnante, Milton DeLugg, and Gus Van. More than 1800 of the Soundies mini-musicals were made, and many of them have been released to home video.

Today Soundies are perhaps best known for the performances of African-American artists who had fewer opportunities to perform in public venues.

'A Colour Box' By Len Lye

A music video is a distinctive art form, which can allow really interesting creative opportunities. In the 1920's, the first music video was released that embedded both music and moving images in one extract. Len Lye experimented with colour and music and created a feature film to advertise the lower parcel post rates created this. The music is by Don Baretto and his Cuban Orchestra.

Intertexuality of Marilyn Monroe - Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friends, Madonna Material Girl and Moulin Rouge

“Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” was imprinted indelibly on the memory of the big screen with Marilyn Monroe’s legendary 1953 performance in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and has taken on a number of reincarnations and reinventions since, presenting a unique vision of sex and femininity to the viewer, an intriguing combination of desire and commerce. Two of the most notable revisions to date of Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number have been Madonna’s 1985 “Material Girl” music video, and Nicole Kidman’s performance as the courtesan Satine in Baz Luhrman’s 2001 Moulin Rouge! 

Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friends

Intertexuality of Marilyn Monroe - Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friends and Madonna Material Girl

Madonna - Material Girl - Official Music Video HD

"Material Girl" has separate messages in its visual and verbal symbology that exist in tension with each other. A

As the narrative shifts from the song-and-dance number to the boy-seeks-girl love story, the mogul offers the actress a ragged bunch of daisies--the gift of the proletarian man to his sweetheart, the most common flower than can be picked in any field rather than an expensive spray of hothouse roses. The actress acknowledges his gift with a smile and mogul-gets-girl. Cut to the song-and-dance number, and as it concludes we see the mogul proffering a wad of bills to a farmer for his old, beat-up truck. The sale is concluded before the actress appears on the scene. As the love story concludes, the mogul, posing as a man of modest means, and the actress embrace.

What is the dialectic tension of the visual and verbal elements in terms of the Madonna-as-sexual-capitalist image? If Madonna's goal is to reverse male-dominated hegemony in the entertainment industry, this video may be sending a mixed message. Since the actress in "Material Girl" is secure enough about her own prospects and personal capital to love the man she chooses rather than the one she needs to advance, she does not use her sexuality to dominate the moguls of Hollywood and she is deceived by the false front her mogul-suitor presents. At the same time, it could be argued that because she is such an exciting woman the mogul changes his typical courtship ritual.

In many ways he is like her, secure enough financially to be able to buy the trappings of poverty, while a man of truely modest means could not afford to buy the trappings of wealth or even rent them. If either of them thought they were not part of the power elite, they would not have made the choices they made. Thus, the video reinforces the notion that those that have, get. In this case they get each other, sending the message that consciously or unconsciously, almost as if it were instinct or a law of nature, people pair up with those of their own social class. Madonna is not the champion of the feminine underclass in the entertainment world or the world of sexual politics at large that she would like us to believe. She is however a pretty strong advocate for Madonna.

The visual elements of "Material Girl" provide her with star-text framing, but the tension between the visual and verbal elements negates Madonna's image as a sexual capitalist who triumphs over the male-dominated Hollywood hierarchy to the benefit of all women. The visual narrative reveals that she is seduced by the very ability to purchase affection and sex that she attempts to turn to her advantage. She is no more savvy about the male-dominated culture than any other woman, but she is personally powerful enough that her ignorance of men matters no more to her than most men's ignorance of women matters to them. She may not be one of the boys, but she is no second-class citizen.

Characteristics of a music video

Characteristics of Music Video

Ultimately we will advocate using cultural models for the rhetorical analysis of music video. To fully understand how a cultural model facilitates rhetorical criticism of music video, it is first necessary to explore the unique features of the genre. Music, particularly rock, has always had a visual element. The album cover, the "look" a band strived for in performance, concert staging, and promotional publicity have all helped create a visual imagery for rock (Goodwin, 1992). The use of video to stimulate album sales and the birth of MTV as a continuous outlet for viewing simply served to enhance the visual potential present in rock.

Viewers typically do not regard the music video as a commercial for an album or act.Aufderheide (1986) describes the connection of viewer to video."With nary a reference to cash or commodities, music videos cross the consumer's gaze as a series of mood states. They trigger nostalgia, regret, anxiety, confusion, dread, envy, admiration, pity, titillation--attitudes at one remove from the primal expression such as passion, ecstasy, and rage. The moods often express a lack, an incompletion, an instability, a searching for location. In music videos, those feelings are carried on flights of whimsy, extended journeys into the arbitrary." (p. 63)

That music videos present compelling mood states that may claim the attention of the viewer is not a matter of happenstance.
Abt (1987) states that "directors of videos strive to make their products as exciting as the music. In the struggle to establish and maintain a following, artists utilize any number of techniques in order to appear exotic, powerful, tough, sexy, cool, unique" (p. 103). Further, Abt indicates a video must compete with other videos.

"They must gain and hold the viewer's attention amidst other videos; help establish, visualize, or maintain the artist's image; sell that image and the products associated with it; and perhaps, carry one or several direct or indirect messages . . ." (p. 97).

Music videos may be further characterized by three broad typologies: performance, narrative, and conceptual (Firth, 1988).
These types describe the form and content selected by the director or artist to attract viewers and to convey a direct or indirect message.

Performance videos, the most common type (Firth 1988) feature the star or group singing in concert to wildly enthusiastic fans. The goal is to convey a sense of the in-concert experience. Gow (1992) suggests "the predominance of performance as a formal system in the popular clips indicates that music video defines itself chiefly by communicating images of artists singing and playing songs" (pp. 48-49). Performance videos, especially those that display the star or group in the studio, remind the viewer that the soundtrack is still important. "Performance oriented visuals cue viewers that, indeed, the recording of the music is the most significant element" (Gow, 1992, p. 45).

A narrative video presents a sequence of events. A video may tell any kind of story in linear, cause-effect sequencing. Love stories, however, are the most common narrative mode in music video. The narrative pattern is one of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen (Schwichtenberg, 1992).Conceptual videos rely on poetic form, primarily metaphor (Firth, 1988). The conceptual video can be metaphysical poetry articulated through visual and verbal elements. "These videos make significant use of the visual element, presenting to the eye as well as the ear, and in doing so, conveying truths inexpressible discursively" (Lorch, 1988, p. 143). Conceptual videos do not tell a story in linear fashion, but rather create a mood, a feeling to be evoked in the experience of viewing (Firth, 1988).

Conceptual videos contain the possibility for multiple meanings as the metaphor or metaphoric sequence is interpreted by the viewer.
"Thus the metaphorical relations between images structured according to musical and visual rhymes and rhythms play a suggestive role in soliciting multiple meanings from us, the viewers/listeners, that resonate with our experience--something we can feel and describe" (Schwichtenberg, 1992 p. 124).

A given music video may actually have elements of more than one category. Goodwin (1992), in describing Madonna's videos, suggests that the essential narrative component of a music video is found in its ability to frame the star, "star-in-text," as all Madonna's videos seem to do. A story exists solely for its ability to create, or in Madonna's case recreate, the star's persona. This blending of elements can also enable a type of music such as rap to have cross-over appeal to a wider audience.Although we may profitably interpret the message potential of music video using these three categories as a basis for content analysis, certain limitations exist if we remain on that path. "Analysts of music video narrative have been all too eager to freeze the moment and study videos shot by shot, but here the problem is that this generates not too much but too little knowledge, because the individual narrative is highly intertextual" (Goodwin, 1992 p. 90).

As a blend of video technique and imagery from film and television, music video offers us a new perceptual agenda by providing allusions to and incorporations of old iconic imagery from film, allowing us to reconstitute the pieces of the 20th century information explosion (Turner, 1986). The brevity of the music video has created a new grammar of video technique particular to this miniscule video form.

"Visual techniques commonly employed in music videos exaggerate . . . Interest and excitement is stimulated by rapid cutting, intercutting, dissolves, superimpositions, and other special effects, that taken together with different scenes and characters, make music videos visually and thematically dynamic." (Abt, 1987 pp. 97-98)

Born of an amalgam of commercialism, television, and film, for the purpose of selling rock albums, music videos frequently employ well-established verbal and visual symbols in telling a story or making a point. If no such symbols exist, music videos coin their own which, given the ubiquity of the medium, quickly find their way into the vernacular.How then to best understand the rhetorical properties that such a media form has for the audience? Schwichtenberg (1992) suggests that what critics should consider "is how music videos are woven into a complex cultural context that includes performers, industries, and diverse audiences who attribute a wide variety of meanings to the music and visuals" (p. 117).

These characteristics suggest that the most methodologically appropriate approach to understanding how music videos might function as rhetoric is to view them as cultural acts, intertextually located in the viewer's own experience. We define culture, with a little help from Bruce Gronbeck (1983), as a complex of collectively determined sets of rules, values, ideologies, and habits that constrain rhetors and their acts. This complex leads a society to generate meaning through various message forms to establish a series of societal truths. The extent to which any form of communication such as a music video plays a part in the process of truth-making is what the rhetorical critic attempts to discover through criticism.

Music Video Breakdown

Key framing Exercise

Story Board Examples

We have created a story board that we are going to put into final cut along with the music and make our film with the screen shots to get an overview of what our final product is going to look like. Here are a few examples of some random story board screen shots...

This is the beginning where the judges are entering the hall.

This is Audrey Hepburn in the dream sequence.

This is the popcorn angle shot.

Here the judges are happy that the main singer is good and they stand and cheer for him. This happens near the end of the music video.

Costume List

-Fruit: banana, orange, gorilla

-Old SpiceGirls: long skirts, blouses, white hairspray rather than buying wigs? Walking sticks, 3D glasses so they look ‘hip’: ginger union jack thing, baby lollipop & teddy bear, posh short all black, scary afro and animal print, sporty with a basketball wearing hoody and a skirt 

- Dancer:  tutu, black leggings, bright leg warmers, white trainers, sweatbands, headbands

-Clown: exaggerated makeup

-Baby grow

- Exercise boys – leader: camouflage stuff, black lines on face like war paint, military boots, head bands/bandannas. Others: camouflage trousers & tops (doesn’t matter top wise to be honest)

-Michael Jackson – white gloves and socks, black shoes, suit trousers, black hat, red shirt or jacket, braces, bow tie perhaps

-Chicken suit & an egg made out of polystyrene which will be shaped into an oval shape and painted a egg shell colour

-Harry Potter – black bin bags as capes, glasses, school tie, scar on heads, brooms, twigs and sticks as wands

-Court Judge – Gavel, wig, black bin bag cut into dress, black trousers & black long sleeved top underneath, proper shoes, coloured strip of material to put round shoulders or just a scarf

-Chav – Orange, back combed hair, OTT makeup, fake eye lashes, pale lips, chewing gum, pink top, hoop earrings, big heals, black trousers of some sort

-Mad scientist – lab coat, back combed hair with a ruler in it, bow tie, glasses, experiment exploded in face so black bits everywhere, have a copy of periodic table

-Statue – paint them silver, either find a plain dress of the same colour or get a white dress and paint it that colour, every inch of them must be coloured this way, dress in ancient Greek style. If we cannot paint them then we will just dress them as someone from ancient Greece – need sandals 

Factors to consider

Marketing your product is a key aspect in any business. Before you release or even produce your product, some of the factors you must look at are:

- Who your target audience is

- If your aim is to be product orientated or market orientated

- What your budget is

- Where are you going to advertise

- How you are going to advertise

- How you are going to produce your product

- The resources you will need

- When will you produce it

- How long will it take (and anything else that has not been mentioned but it will affect your production).

Once you have taken time out and gone through all these factors, you can then go a step further.