Textual Analysis 1 (The Kooks)

The first music video I analysed was The Kooks- Always Where I Need To Be. I decided to analyse this video because it is in the same genre as my chosen song (rock, although my chosen song is a lot slower than this one it is still classed as being a 'rock' song), therefore I thought it would be useful to do as it would help me establish conventions of this genre of music, in relation to cinematography, editing, developing the narrative and using other features such as the mise-en-scene to help promote music.

Form Conventions (Music Videos)

History of Music Videos

Music videos became into prominence around the 1980s when the well known channel MTV began, there were 'music videos' before this time, however, they were called 'promotional videos' or 'song videos'. For example, one of the most well known music videos prior to the 1980s, was Bob Dylan's 1965 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' video which was originally created for the documentary called 'Don't Look Back' -which followed Bob Dylan on his 1965 tour of England. One of the reasons this is one of the most memorable music videos, is because of its simplicity. It focuses on the actual lyrics of the song, rather than the image of the performer. Throughout the video it is just on straight shot of Bob Dylan himself holding up certain words from the lyrics in a back alley behind where he was performing one of his shows. This shows how important these lyrics, and the message they are trying to give, are to Bob Dylan.
Below are some stills from the video...

 The mise-en-scene and cinematography do not change at all throughout this video it is just one shot of him, framed in a long shot with him only taking up 1/3 of the screen, with the lyrics he is holding taking up into the 2nd third. He doesn't mime or even perform in any way. He is just simply holding the lyrics for his audience to see, again reinforcing the idea that the lyrics are the most important part of this song for him; not how he looks, where it's set or how fancy the editing looks.

Another band that take a similar approach to Bob Dylan in their music video for 'Hard Day's Night' is The Beatles. In 1964 The Beatles released the movie 'Hard Day's Night' (along with the album, it was the first multi-media release) and what people loved about it was how real it was. It was essentially a day in the life of The Beatles, they played themselves (unlike artists such as Cliff Richard that promoted their own songs in movies where they play a character that isnt themselves). It had very strong verisimilitude as the diegesis was their everyday life, they were not trying to set up a fake world with a narrative for their songs, they simply played themselves as the stars they were playing their own hits. The opening scene is them running away from a bunch of screaming fans (which was all real) and running about a train station, again creating realism within the mise-en-scene.

In the section of the film where they sing 'Can't Buy Me Love' again they do not perform the song in anyway, for the majority of the song they are just running through a field (below) which again makes people listen to the lyrics of the song, and make the actual message of the music more important than the image of the performer or making it look as fancy as they can, there is nothing 'Hollywood' or glamorous about running through a field, they are focusing on the music and them doing what they want in the video could represent the fun and the passion they had for the music they were making, not just focusing on the fame and fortune that there music has presented them with.

Now there is so much more diversity as to what  artists can do with their music videos. Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' took a new approach to music videos, not only did it break technical conventions (such as having 3 different diegesis within one video), but also the fact that it cost approximately $500,000 to make and lasted almost 15 minutes.


Since then, convergence has become a major part of music videos, for example, allowing artists to have the diversity to make a music video more like a short film or a documentary style (similar to Jay-Z's 'Picasso Baby' video, which he filmed in an art gallery, including many different members of the public, from waitresses, to sculptors to actors).
Sites such as YouTube and TV shows such as MTV have also made marketing a very important part in the production and success of the song.



Lyric Timings and Annotations (Old song choice)

Before creating my in-depth lyric analysis on Prezi, I did the timings for each line which would help give me an idea for when it came to my storyboard about when each edit would need to be. I also made a few annotations to some initial thoughts that came into my head when I looked at these lyrics...

Genre Conventions

My chosen genre for a music video is Rock Music. Although my chosen song is quite a soft rock song, it still falls into this genre, and will therefore follow the conventions. Rock music started off as 'rock n roll' in the 1950s, originally associated with rebellion. The lyrics of rock songs will have a variety of topics, ranging from the stress of romantic love, as well as choosing more serious themes such as social or political barriers and how they can be broken.

Jason Mittell said that when media producers create a text they use codes and conventions that make cultural references to their target audience's knowledge of society- in rock music the convention is usually to break the societal norms, and rebel against what is expected of them. Throughout time genre has evolved with the era that the media text is created in, the genre will have the same generic themes but make it contemporary to fit with the time it was created in (Steve Neale). Therefore using this theory to explain my chosen song ("Imagine- John Lennon"), it could be said that Lennon wanted to rebel against the racial, political and social barriers that he felt were present at the time. He wass trying to express his dream of a 'utopian' hyper reality where there are no prejudices that he feel are the cause of the problems in the society he lived in at the time. Despite this song been written over 40 years ago, the genre, and conventions of the genre, has not changed. Therefore I can still use the conventions of rock music to express the message Lennon was trying to spread when he wrote the song. The audience can use the genre and the conventions of it to decide if it is a media text that they want to consume.


In regards to more modern rock music, the term 'social realism' has been used. This means that rock music artists now are trying to present working class people, way of life, and our current society, in a more realistic way; by using realistic settings, locations (specifically urban locations), economic hardship, life struggles and other things. Artists such as Jake Bugg and Arctic Monkeys are doing this in their videos.
For example, in the Arctic Monkey's music video 'Leave Before The Lights Come On', the mise-en-scene in this video is very realistic and portrays a realistic view of working class life- including the main woman in it clearly experiencing life struggles as she wishes to kill herself), the shops may not be the classiest of shops, and the people used may be actors but they are portrayed in an everyday, realistic way- no fancy accessories, clothes etc. Therefore making it more relatable for the audience (which would most likely be in this class, and would therefore appreciate the realism of the video).

A2 Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with:

• a cover for digipak (CD/DVD package)
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package)

Summer Work- 30 Second Storyboard of a Music Video