History of Pop Video

History of Pop Video

The 1940's

The history of the pop video started with the worlds first major pop star who came about it the 1940s - Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby made quite a lot of films such as "White Christmas" that existed as musicals where many of Bings songs would be played throughout the film. Another film that included Bing Crosby and hi music was that of the widely famous film - "High Society" This film contained the likes of many famous pop and jazz stars during this time, such as Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra. 

The 1950's

This moves me on very swiftly to the next major pop star of the century, being Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra got very very popular very quickly, and because of how much younger he was compared to other famous pop stars such as Bing Crosby, he was seen much more as a male model for young girls in this period. For this reason he was the first ever major pop star to gain a female audience that would scream at him whilst his performances were going on. 

the 1950's-1960's

Moving to the other side of the globe, we had rock and roll first being introduced by the very famous Elvis Presley. The idea of rock and roll brought not only a genre specifically aimed at the younger generation of this time but it also gave the young people their own fashion sense, they no longer dressed in suits like musicians such as Bing Crosby and frank Sinatra. Elvis Presley only did his concerts in the USA and for this reason he was not very popular within the UK or anywhere outside the USA but we knew of him and what he has done to the musical scene. Elvis Presley made a lot of his own films in which he would showcase some of his songs so that they would gain attention, this majorly boosts his popularity. 

1960's

In the 1960's we got the Beatles, probably the most influential and praised rock band ever formed. The Beatles started in the UK, more specifically Liverpool and only went up in popularity by then, The Beatles were constantly featured on widely watched music shows such as Top of the Pops where the played a lot of their song and gained a lot of attention. 

Eventually the foursome got so popular that they became the first band to ever play a stadium, and because of their massive popularity not only in the UK but now in the USA also the fans would scream so loud that you couldn't even hear what they were playing. The Beatles grew sick of this attention and as a reaction to this they made the film "A Hard Days Night" where it shows just how much they need to hide from their fans i order to try and live a normal life and ultimately do what they want. They then made what is considered to be the first ever pop music video ever made, this was made for the song - "Paperback Writer" This video contains the members of the band playing their instruments out on a grassy field surrounded by flowers, although it is the first music video ever made it does still have some of the characteristics withing the video that pop videos have today, for example close ups, miming, etc. After this the Beatles began experimenting heavily with different types of sounds such as playing the song backwards and using recreational drugs for an "influence" and the songs went downhill and basically weird from this point onward. 

Analysis of New Music Video - Britney Spears

Analysis of new Music Video

The video I have chose to analyse is Britney Spears - Toxic

This Video is a horrible example of how women should be presented in media for many many reasons. 

Cinematography: 

The cinematography throughout the entirety of this video is only used to highlight The crude parts of her body that feminists do not want to be constantly objectified, the most common shots used throughout the entirety of this song are very simple front on shots of her while she is doing her own "special" dance moves. 

the lyrics:

The lyrics to this song are incredibly crude to say the least, the song has a very sexual meaning behind it and this is displayed very strongly through not only the music video(as you can see by the picture to the left) but also by the lyrics in the song. for example: Intoxicate me now with your lovin' nowI think I'm ready now, I think I'm ready now
It is very clear that she is trying to suggest this sex appeal through the song, and this is further heavily emphasised through the mis-en-scene.

The Mise-En-Scene:

The mise-en-scene in the song (i.e the costumes) are, as you can see fro the screen grabs provided, very very revealing, this is because she is trying to put across her sex appeal through the video in an attempt to appeal to her male audience much more than her female audience, thus proving the male gaze that the video is seen through.

 The entire video she is used as the object of erotic desire and what makes it worse is she is doing it all herself, thus not only making her look very bad but going heavily against the feministic views of Laura Mulvey in media and media consumption. 

Laura Mulvey - Feminism and Rihanna Music Video Analysing

Laura Mulvey - Feminism 

Laura Mulvey was a feminist who write many reports and theories on modern cinema and her view on it compared to her views as a feminist. For example Laura Mulvey believes that cinema reflects society, and more specifically a patriarchal society of which men rule over everyone and everything that women do and anything in general, men are in charge and women are inferior. There are many examples of how a patriarchal society reflects itself in film and media, for example in the James bond films the woman is seen only as an object of erotic desire and has no real purpose whatsoever whilst the man(James bond) rules over the film commanding her around and ultimately being the main and most important person in the film. 

Erotic Desire:

Erotic desire explains how a woman is of no use in a film other than a specific two roles in film: 

1. As an object of erotic desire for the characters
2. As an object of erotic desire for the audience

This heavily emphasises patriarchal society and how the man needs to rule over the films role while the woman is used as only eye candy for either the audience or the characters within the film. 


The Gaze

One of the most important and most recognised theories that Laura Mulvey had put across in here feministic views is the idea of "The Gaze". This theory suggests that the Gaze of the camera of which the audience is watching the film through is seen as the eyes of a male character in the film, in other words the male gaze. Laura Mulvey states that the male gaze is an active gaze that viewers interact with and the film plays out under this gaze whereas the female gaze is passive and does not have as much of an important role in film. Male characters are always directing their gaze towards female characters in the film, this emphasises erotic desire of the female characters. Lastly Miss Mulvey states that there are three levels of a cinematic gaze:

1. Camera
2. Character 
3. Spectator(audience)

Agency

The last notable theory that Laura Mulvey presented was that of Agency in films. Agency in classic hollywood cinema describes when a character in a film is powerful and focused on in the film and is carrying out a very important role, Most male characters in the film have Agency, for example James Bond. In contrast to this like in the James bond films the female character is always passive and never does anything especially notable within the film to direct attention to herself without being the object of erotic desire.

Rihanna - Shut Up and Drive Analysis

This music video for Rihanna song "shut up and drive" is highly focused on as a bad representation of how women should present themselves in music videos in many different ways, we can use Laura Mulveys theories to pinpoint its many bad features. 

The Gaze

This video is obviously filmed through a male point of view as it is highly directed and very erotic movements aimed at the camera in an attempt to make herself look good in the video. Also the music videos meaning is not about cars but instead something much more crud, this emphasises the male gaze even more as she is trying to symbolise the videos real meaning and thus making her a horrible female role model and a horrible example for the point of feminism herself as she is doing all the things that feminists are trying to get off the face of media as it objectifies the gender. 

Erotic Desire

The only point of this video is to be the object of erotic desire, that is all the singer is concerned about is looking good in front of the camera and appealing to her majority male audience in this very frowned upon way. She is also constantly bending over cars and pretending to fix them in another attempt to even appeal to male audiences through the use of inanimate object being a car. 

Mise - en - scene

This video is a horrible example of representation of genre through mise-en-scene as she is barely wearing any clothes. The clothes she is wearing are her attempt to purposely try to make herself loo good and reveal a good amount of skin which seems to be what she is aiming to do. This is why women are objectified within media and also why this video is heavily against feminism and their views. 

Purpose/Styles Of A Music Video

There are different styles of music videos that all have their own characteristics and appeal to different audiences in their own specific way. These are:

• Narrative Based

A narrative based music video is one that contains a storyline and the music follows this storyline. This storyline will mostly match the pace of the music video as well as occasionally showing a relationship between the video and lyrics. The storyboard music video is  most popularly used to express the story behind the music more clearly as sometimes it is not always obvious by the music
alone.

• Cinematic

A cinematic music video is almost like a mini film, with high production values going into fancy editing, large good looking sets. A cinematic music video will make amazing use of mise-en-scene and cinematography because of its high expenses.

• Studio Based

A studio based music video is a music video that is literally only filmed in one location, being the studio. Normally because of it only being in one location they will make good use of as many camera angles as they can in order to try and counteract the tenacity of the single location. 

• Parody

A parody music video is a music video that mocks another music video by almost copying everything that happens in the original music video but adding a comedy affect to it. For example changing some scenes slightly to make them funnier but still relating back to the original music video. here is an example: 

• Pastiche

A pastiche music video is a music video that is set in a different date, making amazing use of the "fun" stereotypes of this time. Making for a very unique music video.

• Animation

This is a music video that is obviously created by computer generated animations, making use of fun sometimes "old school cartoon characters or just adding in animated characters to make the video more energetic/ fun/ and unique. 

• As Live

An "As Live" music video is a music video filmed entirely from footage taken of the band/artist in a performance or multiple performances spliced together. This makes for a more energetic music video as well as a more "real" feeling music video.

Elton John Lip Syncing Exercise and Video

Elton John Lip Syncing Evaluation

How We Filmed The Exercise:

What Kind Of Takes We Used

I think my editing of this exercise came out very well, not only because of the editing itself but mainly also because of the wide variety of shot types of which we used as well as how we filmed these shot types. We filmed every shot we did in whole takes with the exception of the scene of me knocking on the door on the line "O honey when you know on my door, I give you my key" we did this not as a whole take but instead as a selective recording because we only did this take for the main purpose of using it for this one line. there was also one selective recording of our workmates Alanta and Carl doing the echo of the line "Nobody knows". The fact that we recorded everything in whole takes made the recordings generally a lot better because everything was smooth and in time with every other video because their are no cuts in any of the clips that i did not put in during the editing process.

What Different Shot Types We Used: 

We used a variety of different shots in our version of this lip syncing exercise such as a front on mid shot of the two of us (me and Alex) this was used as our main shot to refer back to multiple times in the video, a shot from Alex's side of the set, as well as a high angle from on top of the table from my side of the set. Aside from this we also had an addition of a tracking shot rolling through the entirety of the takes, this allowed for some very intricate shots to be created with the slow movements of the tracking shots going past the two of us at all times. We also had one additional selective shot of me knocking on the door of the room on the line "O honey when you knock on my door" this is because we wanted this particular line to have a comical effect to it. there was also one more addition selective recording of a pivot tracking shot of Alanta and Carl doing the echo of the line "nobody knows" this was added in because we not only wanted to include them in the recording somewhere but we also wanted someone else, i.e background singers to do this part so we thought they were suitable. We used these particular shot types to show a wide variety of shots throughout our recording in order to not only make the editing smoother with more variety of what clips to cut to next but also to make the recording look better in general with the music.

How We Edited The Sequence:

I edited the sequence in adobe premiere and i used many different methods of editing in order to make the clip look as good as it possibly could. I began the editing with a slight fade in to the song whilst the into is playing through with a quick cut to 3 of our different shots just to showcase what shots we have done and what shots we will be using more of later on in the video.

I edited the clips in such a way so that we shot changed roughly every 10 seconds with the exception of a few clips if i had to cut them short or if i wanted them to stretch for longer. This is so the clips never get boring with constant changes to not only make the editing more complicated but to also preview the wide amount of shots we used and so that i could use trial and error to see what shots looked best with what scenes. This is also the resin why some clips are overlapping each other, incase i didn't like how the top one looked and wanted it to fade in to the next one.

I also made sure to sync up certain parts of the video with different lyric lines if they look better with specific lip movements or shot types. I also made sure that every single clip synced up with the start of a different lyric line every time, so that it didn't change clips mid sentence and therefore look really choppy. 

I also put an added title on to the end of the sequence with my name on it and the project name just for reference purposes. 

The Mistakes I Have Made:

I made a few mistakes mainly in the actual filming process of the video, this is because not only were we holding the paper with lyrics on them the entire way through most of the clips which made it look unprofessional but there were also times where both me and Alex's made and error in our lines. Because of this we couldn't use certain parts of some clips and we had to do more than one whole take of the same shot type just so we could correct the missing lines or out of sync lines. This was also a reoccurring issue of me singing the lyrics slightly out of time making the recording look slightly scruffy and poorly recorded. To fix this I had to manoeuvre certain clips to hide the out of sync lines underneath different cuts.

What I Have Learned From Doing This Sequence That I Can Use In My Final Project:

This project has taught me some very useful skills that I intend to use not only for the final project but also in filming and editing in general. I would have never thought to film everything in whole takes before as it is a very time consuming ways of doing things and therefore I would not have preferred this method before, however I now see that this is the best method for recording a music video at some points and during some shots that i intend to edit back to numerous times in the clip.

There are also some shot types such as the tracking shot that was running the entire way through the recording that were my personal favourite shots because of how smooth it moved and it gave off a very good cinematic effect. This is one shot that I definitely plan to use for my final project. I also intend to use specific shots that reflect what the lyrics are saying a lot more like I did in this project.
Lastly i have never locked a video in place before whilst trying to edit a video and i have discovered today that this is actually a very useful method of allowing your clip to stay in the same place incase an accident happened, this also means that i do not have to kip syncing the lip movements up with the music because it will always stay in time.

Different Types Of Music/Bands

Different Types of Music/Bands

There are a lot of varies and diverse music through-out time and culture however they are all grouped under two main categories in this case to make them easier to both compare and get a broader view over. These two categories are organic and synthetic

Organic:

Organic bands are bands that put the music they make first over any sort of business or finance, they would have known each other for a long time and actually enjoy playing together as friends and having a good time, an example of this would be "The Beatles".

The Beatles not only followed all of these guidelines of having not only a shared interest in music but also being very good friends and enjoying what they do to the utmost passionate level but they also toured countries together and became the biggest pop band to ever hit the world. 

In The Beatles early stages they toured hamburg in German in some rather undesirable places to make little to nothing per gig, however this caused and encouraged them to further pursue their dream for music and it caused them to improve by a lot because of how much they were playing together. 

Their first live television performance and broadcast in america was on "The Ed Sullivan Show" this one public event that most of america tuned in for spared a new area of Beatles music in which everyone adored. 

Another example of an organic band that hit it quite big are Radio Head. Radio head became an official band in mid 1984, they all knew each other from the school they went to and their first debut single that to this day is still detestably their most popular record is the song "creep"

Synthetic;

In great contrast to that of the organic sub genre of music that we are categorizing there is also what we call Synthetic music. This refers to bands that have had to previous contact with each other and who only interest is to make money, they would normally be put together by mass record labels looking to make millions and often didn't even know how to play the instruments that they pretended to play. 

A very strong correlation to this category of music is that of the Beatles lookalike band known as "The Monkeys" This was a band of young boys who didn't know how to play instruments and were instead put together based on who would appeal to their target audience of young teenagers the most, in other words good looking people.

The former drummer of the monkeys agrees and provides us with this fact that the members of the band themselves had little to no control over the band and that it was mostly run by record label who of which they had to listen to ever word. 

A new day example of this Synthetic type of band is that of the new age pop boy group "One Direction" They were put together by a mass corporate business man in charge of syco records simon cowell thus agreeing with the Synthetic guidelines thoroughly. 

Record Labels

Major Record Labels:

Examples of some of these major record labels are companies such as : 

• Universal - own record artists such as: Mika, Kanye west, Amy winehouse
• Sony Music - own record artists such as: Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Cristina Aguliera 
• Warner Bros. - own record artists such as: Price, Jason derulo, Miles davis
• EMI - own record artists such as: Paul Mcartney, John Lennon, Robbie Williams 

The majority of these companies are backed conglomerates with stakes in other industries such as ; film, TV, electronics etc.

Major-Independents

Most of these 'Majors' own or license a series of smaller subsidiary companies in order to reach different kinds of audiences in different kinds of genre.

Some examples of these major independent record labels are:

• Columbia - own record artists such as: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Barbara Streisand 
• Island - own record artists such as: Mariah Carrey, Justin Beiber, Jessie J
• Syco - own record artists such as: Gareth Gates, Paul Potts, Cher Loyd
• RCA - own record artists such as: ABBA, apocalyptica, Funkdoobiest
• Virgin - own record artists such as:Keith Richards, Boy George, Lenny Kravits

Independents

There are a huge number of small record companies with little or no connection to the majors.

These companies often concentrate on a small number of acts, within specialized niches of the industry. 

One example of a highly successful independent label is 'Domino' records.