Seen below is an embedded SlideShare powerpoint that i developed outlining the key facts about some of the most notorious directors within the Music Video industry.
Below I have embedded various SoundCloud and YouTube files of myself analysing 2 music videos produced by the directors who feature in the SlideShare above. I will be reviewing criteria such as CameraWork, Sound, Editing and Mise-En-Scene within the extracts.
This song’s genre is hard to define but is commonly seen to be either ‘Big Beat’ or ‘electronica’ however sometimes it’s viewed as Pop or Alternative Rock. The music video won three major awards in 1999 at the MTV Video Music Award consisting of Breakthrough Video, Best Direction and Best Choreography and it was also nominated but did not win the Best Dance Video award. The music video at the time was very new and original costing only $800 to produce and that money was mainly spent on food for the crew and cast as well as a replacement boom box. The video was shot handheld style and this is clearly seen in the video itself when one of the theatre stewards at the cinema in California turns off the music. The visuals contradict the lyrics and all in all have no relevance to what the lyrics are or could be implying. The visuals are juxtaposed to the lyrics and as the lyrics themselves are simple short and the lines are repetitive, this would make sense. There are times in the video where it could be seen that the formation dancing may be illustrating the lyrics ‘I have to praise you like I should’ but for the majority of the video, it is contradicting the lyrics. Another relationship seen is that between the music and visuals in which ‘Praise You’ does illustrate the music and work with it, especially with the beat of the music. The timing of the formation dancing follows the beat and works cohesively as opposed to contradicting it which is not often done in big beat genre songs. The video is really iconic in the fact that it is what would be considered a response video or a parody of an original dance routine but instead it is the official video that has cleverly been done to appear in that style. A lot of effort went into the video as it was directed by Spike Jonze who starred in the video under the pseudonym ‘Richard Koufey’ . Fatboy Slim’s music videos are often contradictory or juxtaposed to the lyrics, but are cohesive and work with the music itself and illustrate it also. Voyeurism and live stage performance footage are not things that are often included and are definitely not a feature of the ‘Praise You’ video. In some regards the formation dancing and the style it is filmed in as well as the overall effect of the video may be perceived as performance footage but is more unique than anything else because all customers and fans follow individuality and trends, if a video can create word of mouth then Spike Jonze has done his job.
This is the second Music Video I have chosen to analyse, stemming from the Rap Genre 99 Problems by Jay Z was directed by Mark Romanek and is filmed in the suburban streets of America. One element that allows me to instantly identify with the genre of the Music Video is the Mise-En-Scene, or to be more specific the clothing. Every actor or rapper that is present in the video who is seen to be on Jay Z's side is dressed in an extremely conventional gang manor with low hanging trousers, large coats, bucket hats and snapbacks etc. This helps create realism for the audience who truly feel that they are getting a taste of Jay Z's pre luxury lifestyle. A lot of the camera work highlights unattractive and graffitied streets with gang members looking intimidating in the frame, another extremely conventional element that is commonly featured in all rap videos underlining Jay Z's respect, power and dominance in the environment their in. Another interesting element of this music video is the way the director has maintained a seriousness and a high quality even when editing to the beat of the soundtrack, furthermore the camera angles never appear to be stationary, intact they're the exact opposite providing the audience with a dangerous and raw feel for the environment Jay Z grew up in, and the pure fact that the editing has been conducted fully in black and white raises many questions such as race issues or the fact that the streets are so rough they shouldn't be looked at in colour, all very clever reasons that Mark Romanek understands in his directing of a video for this genre. Another element of this music video is the realism through camerawork within the music video, Romanek clearly understands the dangerous lifestyle within the ghetto environment and so highlights death, women, drugs, money and fighting throughout the song. For example, The calculation Jay-Z has to make is whether, knowing that the car contains concealed contraband, he's better off trying to flee or hoping that the police won't find the drugs during the stop. Rap as a genre is extreme and at times explicit, this allowed me to notice Mark Romanek's intentional filming of stripper/prostitues shown on screen every time the word 'Bi*ch' is mentioned. As a director Mark Romanek is clearly very keen on telling a story throughout his music videos and so he decides to tell Jay Z's lifestyle throughout the video with constant long shots of jail members walking through jail highly tattooed and extremely dangerous, and even the cross cutting leading up to a near arrest tells the audience of Jay Z's sketchy past as a drug dealer on the streets, creating a very epithetical effect amongst the audience who through Mark's artistry can see the true struggle that Jay Z went through to be who he is, something that all music videos should try and show if necessary. Also an obviously important characteristic for all music videos is the identifiable lip syncing quality, Mark has managed to interlink a professional lip sync whilst showing a deep underlying narrative, making him a world class director.
Below is a link to an article regarding the legal side of Jay Z's 99 Problems Music Video directed by Mark Romanek:
http://gawker.com/5925168/is-jay-zs-99-problems-legally-accurate-a-law-professor-explains-in-line-by-line-reading
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