Music
Perhaps the most important aspect of a music video, the video is often built around the lyrics and the genre, for example, the music video for 'A Team' by Ed Sheeran is about a girl who sells her body for drugs, which the video depicts, capturing the harshness of life for someone addicted to drugs. Some videos have been banned as a result of them being too elicit, such as Rihanna's infamous 'S&M' video which was banned on Youtube as the video interpreted images from the song's lyrics, the words being of a sexual nature. A cool, acoustic song will usually feature a video that is slow and calm, whereas a loud Drum & Bass song will be fast paced with the camera capturing a lot of action. This type of genre, along with Dubstep and House is often set in a club or party with lots of flashing lights and dancing. Some videos may just feature dancing, most often found with female artists such as Lady Gaga or Rihanna. Indie-Rock music videos as often strange and alternative in their depiction, one of the most famous being Gotye's 'Somebody that I used to know' (image above), where the wall Gotye is singing in front of is painted with various shapes and colours until Gotye is also painted over, as well as woman who also sings.
Camera & Lighting
The effect that lighting can have on a video is that it usually sets the tone for the whole scene, e.g. a vivid and bright video will usually have major (happy), and sometimes loud music, whereas a low lighting or black and white video has music that is minor (sad) in tone and rather quiet. However these two can often contrast. For example, the music video for Oasis' song: 'Morning Glory' is loud and major sounding, where the band is lit up in vivid orange lighting (image left); they're having a great time playing loud music, however the people in the rest of the building are not enjoying their loud music, banging on their apartment door, the hall is bathed in harsh, bright white light, expressing their anger and frustration. 'Changed the way you kissed me' by Example is fully in black and white, but in the chorus there is still lots of lighting at a concert which is hidden by the crowd at points and suddenly bounces back, emphasising the tone and pace of the song.
Iconic Videos
Another of Example's
songs: 'We'll be coming back' is similar to his other songs in the way
that it features heavy bass and electronic music, but a major difference
is that the music video is not set in a club or at a concert; it is
instead a looping video of a couple in the background playing at the
shore of a beach with the lyrics of the songs displayed above them,
perhaps the couple are interpreting the lyrics which is reinforced by
them being shown at the top of the screen, which is unusual as most
music videos do not feature lyrics. An interesting video is
that of Coldplay's 'Strawberry Swing' (image above), a video like no
other, it features Chris Martin (the lead singer) surrounded by pictures
and backgrounds made up of chalk which constantly changes through
stop-motion to provide a narrative for the song, where Martin saves a
girl from the clutches of an evil giant squirrel. The video's style and
story is very reminiscent of Coldplay's Alternative/Indie-rock style
which is presented through the kookiness of the video.
No comments:
Post a Comment