The music video 'Nasty' released at the beginning of 2015 is a hit from the Prodigy's new album 'The day is my enemy'. The video features a fox which is being chased by hunters through the streets of England and several alleyways who want to kill it. The fox later puts the hunters into a trance like state and lures them into the woods where they turn into fox themselves.
The style of video is an 'Animation' which uses real photographs edited to basic grey tones with a constant of the edited colours of orange and yellow in the sky which match the fox. The animated fox over the dulled photographs creates a main focus on the bright orange fox which connotes the idea of not belonging around theses areas in the contrast. The grimy tone of the music links well to the street settings and a raw edgy theme can be clearly seen between the music and the graffitied, dark, messy streets. The camera angles often marginalise the fox, creating the idea of no power or importance to the surrounds/ society links as he isn't central and doesn't often fill the screen. This is also reinforced by the fox often being shot from a high angle and is placed towards the bottom of the screen which creates the idea of being looked down on, or a hierarchy status in society being at the bottom. Quick cuts in certain areas fits the pace of the build up in music towards chorus sections which is significantly faster than the verses/bridge sections of the song.
John Hicks based around Long Beach California films and edits for the company The Come Up and OnSomeShit which broadcasts and releases BMX styled videos which are promotional to the company itself and other bike brands around the world. OnSomeShit is the shop itself in California and their website/ youtube style platform for bikes is The Come Up in which Hicks helps edit and film promotional videos to OSS and for individual edits for members of the sponsored teams.
Hicks grew up North Long Beach which is on the border of Compton so growing up in a Ghetto environment which gave him the drive to look out for himself and focus on biking. At 14 Hicks started filming in which he says he could do very well at all, yet after 3-4 years of filming and learning to edit taught him the sort of shots he likes most and he fashioned he styling around his vision.
Hicks style incorporates a raw saturated film including the creative arty shots between clips of riding to present depth and culture to riding itself which he capture excellently. He style is one of my favourite at the moment as the pace of shots flow well and a narrative structure can sort of be seen to present time in the videos which reflects the efforts and time the riders put into the sport themselves.
Metallica a Thrash Metal band created the song Enter Sandman for their self titled album or the 'Black Album' which was aimed to appeal to a much more mainstream metal/ hard rock audience. Filmed July 3 1991 and released on the 30th, the video relates completely to the lyrical meaning of the song, linking to the themes of nightmares and a constant follow of 'The Sandman' of a little boy. Images of the child having the nightmares is seen, with the shots of an old man being shown and performance values of the band in the background aswell which creates a narrative style video with performance values creating a hybrid styled video.
The mise en scene of the video uses a range of locations and settings, with a constant of the boys bedroom throughout. Settings of a dark night and a large truck heading towards screen, falling from the top of a building, covered in snakes and falling from a mountain is shown being the literal nightmares of the boy on screen. The effectiveness of the scenes is the colouring of the scenes all matching with dark saturated tone throughout which creates an evil feel to the video. This then links to the song itself and the bands values in industry of there metal dark approach to music which makes the video suiting to both themes in the song and the band. This can then also link to the albums name the 'Black' album which suits the dark scary settings in shot.
The camera angles and editing techniques really makes the video as effective as it is to follow the conventions of the thrash metal genre Metallica's music is categorised in. A mix of both 'performance' and 'Narrative' styles of video are seen, where fast cuts between both helps build tensions and suspense of the actions of the boy and his nightmares which follows the build up in heaviness in the music. Extreme close ups are used throughout, focusing on band members hands and body movements playing in the dark which presents and enforces the aggression and grittiness of the music. The band playing in the dark also then fits well with the low key lighting of the boy in bed. It helps the fast transactions between the band and boy and the 'nightmares' flow well whilst changing really quickly. This pace in cuts between clips then links to the speed and timing of the style of music they are playing. Further zooming in close ups of the boys face and neck as he is trying to sleep helps emphasis his struggles to sleep as the nightmares are effecting him which fits well with band member movements as it wouldn't look as good if the band were moving and he was still.
Now I have looked into the different genres which have developed over time and the history of music video itself I am going to analyse a range of music videos. I will look at different genres and different styles of music videos within genre to help broaden my knowledge of preexisting videos.I can then extract what I like from each which I could later incorporate or gather inspiration from for my own work.
Music videos have been around since the 1920's however did not come into popularity and a mainstream for artists today till the 1980's. Jazz artists such as Bessie Smith originally made a short film to match his songs as early as 1929.
In 1959 Tony Bennett produced a video for his popular song 'Stranger In Paradise' which was further distributed and played on US and UK television. This saw the start of music video based television programs and channels, such as todays MTV.
1964 saw The Beatles and their first music video 'Hard Days Night' which became influential and a development in the music video art form due to the creation of a base to follow of music video format, which many contemporary artists at the time further used and later genres such as rock and pop gather inspiration from.
The Beatles 'Hard Days Night':
As new genres and subgenres evolved rapidly in the 70's, television program 'Top Of The Pops' in the UK saw the importance and potential of music videos and there promotional values and clips of newly released music videos were used as teasers to draw their audience back in week after week as they would create a build up to the full music video to be shown. This then boosted their revenue and number of views as their audience would come back for more from the snipit of interest shown.
Queens 'Bohemian Rhapsody' saw a new evolve to the standard music video as a larger budget spent allowed for new advanced special effects for the time making the video a standout for the era. The start of much more advanced effects used in music videos set the bar high and created a boundary for videos of the future.
Queens 'Bohemian Rhapsody':
In 1981 MTV was first broadcasted and the first music video they showed live was the song 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by the Buggles.
Michael Jackson was the next break though at this time period, who first introduced a narrative to his music videos which was briefly seen in Billie Jean and Beat It, however was most recognised in Thriller in 1984 which was in a short film narrative structure. This style changed the game as a stronger link between lyrics and visuals became clearer and the story told within lyrics could be seen onscreen.
Michael 'Jackson Thriller':
From the 90's to present day, technological advancements have allowed for high quality cameras for better footage and much more advanced editing platforms and software which is the step up from before. This technology upgrade has allowed for many styles of music videos to be made including animation and typography mix along with videos. At present times, sex appeal has become a norm to videos due to the edginess attracting media attention for publicity starting with artists such as Beyonce and Rihanna. This has then led on to newer artists such as Iggy Azalea and Miley Cyrus who use the appeal to stay in with trends.
The 50's saw the creation of the Rock n Roll genre in which Bill Haley & His Comets became popular and portrayed the genre. They were founded 1952 and were introduced as; white musicians in which they became successful in achieving 9 hits in the top 20. They were considered revolutionary and the smart attire became a well known iconic look for them. The 50's also saw the introduction of the 'Rock N Roll King' Elvis Presley who's career started 1954. He produced 32 number one hits and 18 number one albums.
The 60's (swinging sixties) saw racial integration in music as Motown Record Corporation was the first record label to be owned by and primarily feature african american artists. Motowns first hit was 'shop around' by the Miracles which got to number 2 in the charts and was also Motowns first million selling record. The Miracles started to introduce the genres hip hop, dance, funk, soul and disco which became more popular in the 80s.
The 70's saw the big leap into the rock genre in which some of the most influential bands of all time formed including 'Aerosmith', 'Kiss', 'Led Zeppelin', 'Pink Floyd', 'The Rolling Stones' and Black Sabbath. The rock genre then saw many sub genres forming into Hard rock and punk which saw many groups of gangs form in association with the music.
The 80's saw the 'Metal Genre' originate with the introduction of Metallica and Iron Maiden which play to current day and many of the dance, rap and hip hop genres develop and become popular. Artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, Tina Turner, Lion Richie, and many rap artists in which many genres developed.
The 90's saw the introduction of Grunge with the famous band Nirvana which created groups of teens with fashion of punk and metal mixed together. Girl bands such as the Spice Girls were formed and many others to form the 'Pop' genre we know to date.
A music video is a video or short film used to accompany a piece a music. Music Videos are primarily used to promote and market the recordings of the music itself and the music production company however bands/ artist often choose to make one to popular songs of theirs for artistic purposes. Music Videos date back many years however came to a mainstream in the 1980s when MTV based their programs around the art form.
Their are many Editing and Sound techniques evident within music videos which include:
Editing to the beat of a song
split screens
CGI/special effects
jump cuts
straight cuts
diagetic sound along with track itself
changes in volume and levels of sound
Music videos have become very popular in recent years that a collection of music videos are now often put onto a dvd to watch in which audiences engage in for there aesthetic values. Many music videos have become 'daring' in the fact that more songs are becoming much more sexualised that the videos themselves are slowly including more sex appeal of the artist rather than a narrative structure.
