VIDEO EXAMPLES Jinjer one location masterclass!

This caught my eye as a nice example of what you can be looking for and blogging on at any stage, without any template or prescribed points - simply practices that catch your eye!

From the video below I was struck by...
Great use of a single location. I've pushed previous groups to make the effort to haul drumkits out to awkward locations, and you can see the visual impact here. For student examples see Sunburnt in December, Smiths and Joe's Nine Inch Nails...
The single location worked because a narrative was included, taking pressure off the performance shots. It was fairly abstract without really being concept as Firth defines it. Ambiguous and polysemic - Vernallis would spit feathers at the idea of deeming this elliptical fare a narrative!!! - but it raises the video from a simple performance shoot.
Note how the singer is incorporated into this, adding power and intrigue (narrative enigma...) into her performance.
Nice use of a single VFX, the dust clouds. No idea if this was done in FCPX via a plugin (which are created in Motion remember) or After Effects/Adobe, but it's moody and raises the location to another level in a way that'd have been rather tricky if relying on diegetic shots, live FX
In turn, that works particularly well because of the plentiful but judicious use of slo-mo plus accelerating motion. Slo-mo is a basic convention it's easy to overlook - I direct you once again to the Pixies (Silver Snail? from rough memory) for exemplary examples (maybe not Velouria, the ultra-exaggerated version - like 1 of the 3 promos for U2's One...)
Another way the performance is dramatised is drone shots through the widely split legs of guitarist/bassist, a really cool albeit risky (health and safety alert!) diegetic visual effect
The mirroring effect (on top of some actual mirrors at the location) helps too. It's close to being overused but generally works well as a visual but also to signify dislocation and simply to play with (Goodwin's convention of) looking.
A glimpse too of the media c-word... The convergence evident in this small-scale indie band affording the fairly impressive visual FX sparked by the gore of the headshot...
Always worth stating though - never use a gun in a student video. And I'd be wary of doing so professionally too as it's got scope (yup, I punned...) to backfire ... A woke gen Z won't necessarily appreciate the use of one given the easy links to school shootings and more

https://www.metalsucks.net/2019/10/11/jinjer-are-blowing-up-heres-their-new-single-video-on-the-top/

CONVENTIONS RESEARCH + BLOGGING in 10 categories

(TBC) I've previously provided an extensive list of themes to consider, with notes on each of these. Having reviewed these, I've come up with a more streamlined list of 10, combining these and some additional aspects. These will help you evidence research/analysis/applied understanding of all 3 CIA (Conventions, Industry, Audience) and go a long way to preparing for your 4 evaluation Qs.

You can gather and build your research through any combination of posts so long as this eventually includes posts titled:

GENERAL CONVENTIONS1: Lyrics/visuals; Narrative 
GENERAL CONVENTIONS2: Genre characteristics
GENERAL CONVENTIONS3: Intertextuality + postmodernism   
GENERAL CONVENTIONS4: Representations 
GENERAL CONVENTIONS5: Cinematography + Editing
GENERAL CONVENTIONS6: UGC
GENERAL CONVENTIONS7: Alt vids
GENERAL CONVENTIONS8: Distribution, social
GENERAL CONVENTIONS9: Branding/promo package 
GENERAL CONVENTIONS10: Possible influences SUMMARY

That's 10 research themes. For each one you need to indicate ideas/aspects you've seen that might influence your work (and then sum this up).

1-5 are conventions focused (+ incorporate Goodwin's 6 conventions), 6-9 go further into industry and audience, and 10 is simply an overall summary of which points are more likely to be reflected in your idea.

You will have some posts, including from class and homework, on individual videos, titling like this:

GENERAL EG1: Artist 'Track Title' (year) 

This phase of pre-production is to help inform your initial pitch development. You will repeat the process with a similar list for GENRE conventions research.

Blogging on 'Exemplar vids'

Start of 1 of my vid analyses: Hyperlinks,
wider research, sub-headings, top summary

There's no single right way to blog on individual videos you've looked at, but you do need to be clear on what sort of points/details you're after, and the overall purpose of undertaking this work.

Remember, you've got 3 years worth of IGS/StG student blogs to help you as well as this blog.

I'll set out the minimal expectations at the bottom of this post, but first...

QUICK LINKS:Music video examples tag; 

Pixies: Bagboy (individual video analysis); 

Pixies artist case study; 

Hetero-normativity: exploring a theme through multiple videos; 

Music videos I've selected + blogged on for raising useful issues.  

Some female fronted bands. 

I blogged on several dance vids, amongst many others, to give you an idea of good style, layout + organisation:

WHY BLOG IN DETAIL ON INDIVIDUAL MUSIC VIDS?

• Its a basic principle of any Media Studies coursework brief that you cannot create a suitable text without developing a thorough, detailed familiarity with the key codes and conventions of a particular format

ARTIST CASE STUDY: THE PIXIES archetypal Indie

Accompanying the lyric 'half asleep with a loaded gun' (Silver Snail) - there are few more inventive, inspiring, and downright stunning videos out there than The Pixies' collection, especially their videos since 2013

there is an embedded YouTube playlist of ALL videos covered at the bottom of this post

Glamourpusses!

IN THIS POST: I embed and briefly discuss the music videos of The Pixies, an archetypal Indie or alternative rock band that date back to the late 80s and are still going strong, with a strikingly different set of videos since 2013. Their antagonism towards playing the promotional game, ironically, made them a key influence on a generation of video-makers. They initially refused to produce any videos then produced some challenging videos that consciously broke many of the most basic conventions of the format. No research into the conventions of music video as a format would be complete without some reference to this lot. The cinematography and use of colour (even the brilliant use of the generally cliched slo-mo tool) in their recent videos is simply STUNNING.

WHO ARE THEY?
The Pixies are a seminal alternative rock (Indie) band who remain a key influence today, both for their music and their highly distinctive music videos. In the UK they're signed to 4AD, part of the Beggars consortium (Indie labels often join forces in co-ops to cut marketing costs and to get better distribution deals, economies of scale etc) - see wiki and this Guardian article on its iconic status. Their music fused Latin influences with rock; a bossa nova, 50s rock sound with a hard edge and dark, literary lyrical themes.

DESCRIBE THEIR BRAND
Key to understanding the Pixies is their sense of coming from humble working class backgrounds in Boston; they did not need to see themselves as a glamorous band and this is reflected in their videos. In a word, authenticity is the hallmark of their branding - this is not a band who would indulge in the fakery most bands will accept in order to maximixe their media exposure and record sales. Their everyday clothing, in contrast to the extravagance of bands like KISS and Bon Jovi that dominated much of the 80s, would bring back a vaguely punk aesthetic to the rock world, with the likes of Kurt Cobain reflecting the Pixies' look. They were edgy too - some of their lyrical themes are very dark indeed, though often based in classic literature, and were prepared to play with basic song structure too.

THE WILL TO BE WEIRD: THE ULTRA SLO-MO SINGLE-TAKE VELOURIA

Yes, a shocker in some regards, but an uber risque effort, and commercial suicide in others. Or, simply: inspirational! Why don't you take on such an idea as an extra (not a main) production? There are several mainstream examples of such alternative, additional videos alongside the main production.

Their videos stand almost as anti-videos, an apparent refusal to play the promotional game:

As "Velouria" (their first single from Bossanova) was climbing up the UK Top 40, the band was offered a spot on Top of the Pops. However, a BBC rule stated only singles with videos could be performed on the show. To counter this a cheap video was made, with the band being filmed running down a quarry.^[105]In the video, twenty-three seconds of footage (the time needed for the band members to reach the camera) is slowed in order to last for the duration of the song.^[106] However, the effort in filming the video was in vain; the Pixies did not play "Velouria" on Top of The Pops while the single was in the charts.^[107] [Wiki]

STUDENT EXAMPLES Latymer School and IGS playlists

I've picked out some of these in lessons and posts before, but here's a playlist gathering together music video coursework from Latymer School, a London department that routinely gets some of the UK's highest marks for their Media work. As noted on the playlist blurb, and beside a couple of the videos, please note that both cuts of I Kissed a Boy feature swearing, while Stockholm Syndrome features flashing flights. I've viewed all 50+ - if I've missed any further issues, or you just want to highlight any, post a comment.

First the IGS playlist, then Latymer - an interesting contrast. Latymer's London location is in stark contrast to semi-rural Ilkley (albeit, as we see in such work as the Joy Division video, within easy reach of Leeds), and there's quite a gap in resources; Latymer's studio gets heavy usage. Resources mean nothing without committed students though - consider the effort and creativity in some of the studio set-dressing in the Latymer examples, great to see! I think adding some external narrative/concept material into many of the studio-set videos would be advantageous, but you could argue that's quibbling when the studio work is so slickly done, eking out considerable variation from this set-up.

Either way, two sets of varying levels but which both showcase just what amazing work inspired students can create today...

The IGS playlist includes several practice exercises; the Latymer list final cuts only. You can view exercises on the Latymer channel.

Social Media + Fans: Doors FB e.g.

If digitisation has produced convergence (the blurring of the lines between once distinct forms of media), it has also blurred the line between audience and producer; even fairly new terms such as use-generated content (UGC) and fan-made videos don't quite capture the extent of this. Yes, fans are producing their own mash-ups, re-edits etc for film, TV and music, but what we're also seeing is the official social media presence of many bands, large and small, using fan-published YouTube uploads to encourage interaction with the act/site/page.

Most of you will have 'liked' various bands on Facebook, and presumably observed how this works. If you think about your company blogs - and perhaps, if you've set one up (its still not too late!), your Facebook page - a key traffic-driver; aspect which might encourage people to return, is video content. Here's an example from The Doors and their Facebook updates:

This video wasn't uploaded by the band officially, but is used by the official Facebook page to generate and sustain interest in the band (whose singer died in 1971), an interesting illustration in itself of how the music industry's line on copyright is flexible when it suits them.
The point here is: what have you done to reflect this important contemporary aspect of how acts and record labels reach out to a fan base, including long-defunct acts? Have you used this stratagem to encourage visitors to your blog/site/page - and thus enhanced your prospects of gaining audience feedback? 194 comments for the e.g. above just 12 hours after posting. I've blogged on a similar theme many times - see links for Q4, and recent posts such as that on the Onslaught travel blog.

Q: who scrapped £100k vid + did 1 on iPhone?

Any ideas on which act thought they looked vacant in a £100,000 vid so scrapped it? And more recently 'they went shopping for a samurai sword to use as a prop in a self-shot music video they made on De Martino's iPhone in a dusty skateboarding bowl in Alicante, Spain'...
They're a 2-piece; the answer follows with a vid embedded which shows how variety can be maintained with a purely performance-based vid (and only the 2 performers remember)...

Romance in Vids: Sade's No Ordinary Love

The (1985) video is embedded and discussed in this Guardian article: feature's Sade as a mermaid, her would-be lover 'literally an ocean apart' - (fish)food for thought for any future romantic-themed vids!

The binary opposition seen later in the vid - the glamorous Sade in white wedding dress running through littered, grimy urban streets and then a dock - are also a memorable, highly impactive feature.

Spoof boyband video

Thanks to GeorgeG for this: a spoof 5ive video, which manages to both clearly reflect the conventions and satirise them in a postmodern, ironic fashion. The conventions and cliches of laddish togetherness and basic dance moves are there, but added in is the wink and nod that this is all actually very silly - you could argue that it serves a female (male gaze, conventions of boy band vids) and male (satirising the conventions, arguably countering the emasculation that sanitised/feminised depictions - with tweenies in mind - brings)...

POMO, WEB EXCL.: Morbid Angel silent movie vid

Perhaps reflecting the hype around The Artist, the 2011 French silent movie thats receiving critical acclaim right now, here's a highly postmodern vid taking on the media language of silent movies but from an unusual source: death metal icons Morbid Angel. Personally I think the vid's quite poor, and the slow pace just doesn't work for the genre, BUT it will generate debate and thus publicity. They gave the online premiere to the magazine site Terrorizer, a move increasingly used (we also see video premieres on the schedules of C4, E4 etc quite commonly) and so something you could think about/write about with regards to use of technology.






Evanescence also provide a good eg of promoting a vid through ... a vid! They gave an interview on set of their latest to MTV, ensuring airplay and publicity: http://loudwire.com/evanescence-inside-lookvideo-my-heart-is-broken/

M.LANG: Jane'sAddiction 'lyric vid'

This is a strange one, albeit from a band whose brand is centred on their difference to the mainstream, one who've had battles with both the censors and their own record label over album covers, and who haven't been afraid to play up gay or bisexual connotations despite having a rock/metal following.
I've never heard of 'lyric videos' before, but this Loudwire article uses the term to denote the curious vid for JA's latest.

Tracking over an underground map from The Warriors

The vid features the lyrics set out as an underground map (rendered through Flash by the looks of it; the 'paper' has accurate folds but looks artificial), with occasional crosscutting to a tracking shot in an underground rail tunnel, plus stills of the band's energetic and triumphant live performance, and ends with a straightforward print ad for the new album, making the commercial logic of music vids more explicit than usual. The camera (as least as rendered through software) tracks across the map, including back and forth to chorus lyrics.
Perhaps an influence here from The Warriors, Walter Hill's 1979 cult classic which has also become a hit PlayStation game [trailer; opening sequence - go to 4:10 in to see map tracking]?

Here's the JA vid:

The canny commercialism doesn't end there; the viral release of the vid is accompanied by a competition to win a guitar signed by all 4 band members.

POSTMODERNISM Rammstein smash genre conventions

Bizarre, but clever, bit of countertyping from godfathers of industrial Rammstein: a new vid for Mein Land in which they appear as happy-go-lucky surfer dudes, in the style of the Beatles, Monkees or Beach Boys, 3 60s bands whose film and TV work contained proto-vids.

This then is yet another option for this brief, and for working within this format: completely playing against type and expectations in a postmodern fashion. Towards the end the footage switches dramatically to more familiar territory; as it features some limited nudity in the final minute I won't embed it, but you can see and read about this Jomas Akerlund vid here: http://loudwire.com/rammstein-nsfw-campy-beach-video-mein-land/

M.LANG: Deconstructionism, pomo, DMode eg

Here's a term that will pop up frequently when analysing vids (and is linked to pomo): DECONSTRUCTIONISM
I'm going to use an eg of a Depeche Mode vid for No Good...


ACT: Depeche Mode
TRACK: It's No Good 
YEAR: 1997
DIRECTOR: Anton Corbijn
GENRE: Electro-Pop/Dance
MAIN AUDIENCE: M/F 15-34+ (both fe/male gaze, 2ndary 35-44 aud from 80s + aspirational tweens + younger teens [10-14])

Gahan ironically dressed as a 70s lounge lizard

META-NARRATIVE + INTERTEXTUALITY
Now, postmodernists argue there is no essential reality, everything is clouded as we view the world through symbols which represent symbols ... There is no such thing as quality; a Kylie Minogue lyric and a Shakespeare are of equal merit - there is simply no objectivity from which we can make such judgements. That poses issues for standard concepts such as genre. Being postmodern, some postmodernists would of course disagree with this depiction, as nothing can be truly defined!
As for this song and video, its difficult to pin down what we're referring to when we say the text:

The music video for "It's No Good" was directed by Anton Corbijn, depicting the

GENRE/PoMo: Mash-ups, hybridity, Rehfeldt, Kutiman

SEE ALSO: http://musividz.blogspot.com/2011/10/genreaudnew-media-pomohybridity.html

In film, hybridity is often a straightforwardly commercial decision: add comedy to romantic drama (rom-com) to help draw in a male aud.

Rap meets metal; the mashup was also racial, with rap's white aud small until this

In music, there is something of this - acts such as Madonna and Gaga are constantly striving to remain relevant to a young aud by taking on aspects of whatever is cutting edge in music at that time; Madonna in particular has an incredible track record of identifying musical trends and producers whilst still fairly underground and exploiting these to keep her own sound fresh. She has frequently used elements of whatever's big at the time in the gay club scene.
From the point that hiphop began emerging in the late 70s (broken big by Run DMC in the mid-80s, and really taken to stratospheric heights once white rappers emerged from Vanilla Ice to Eminem), the concept of genre in music has been problematic. Hiphop is a genre but one defined by its used of all other existing genres.
The concept of the mash-up emerged as a specific variant of this: literally blending two (or more) tracks which the mixer thinks work well together - perhaps the most famous example being Jay-Z's Black Album: remixed by Danger Mouse, weaving in Beatles tracks, to create The Grey Album.

A mashup or bootleg (also mesh, mash up, mash-up, blend and bastard pop/rock) is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another. To the extent that such works are 'transformative' of original content, they may find protection from copyright claims under the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law [wiki]

The blurring of distinct categories is a hallmark of the postmodern aesthetic, and postmodernists argue that originality is impossible - all that can be done (as everything original already exists/has been thought of) is to mashup, remix existing ideas.
Nu-metal is an interesting example - bursting into the limelight in the mid-90s, and taking up the commercial status lost by grunge as it faded away following Cobain's death, it combined metal and hiphop. The pioneer bands (Korn, Deftones, Limp Bizkit) were controversial within the metal fanbase, the hybridity seeing many genre fans rejecting them as inauthentic; not actually metal.
Its time as a predominant musical force was quite brief ... but currently enjoying a resurgence as Limp Bizkit return.
Moreover, Korn have just announced a dubstep-influenced album (with Skrillex): http://loudwire.com/korn-frontman-discusses-new-dubstep-album-current-state-of-rock/ The concept of metal is stretched to its limit here ... and this is hot on the heels of Metallica's album with Lou Reed (leading some to talk of Loutallica!)
But nu-metal is far from unique. Beatallica are a band who fuse Metallica-style singing and playing with Beatles tracks; Dread Zeppelin fuse reggae, Elvis and Led Zeppelin; Apocalyptica play orchestral, classical music renderings of thrash metal bands (I particularly enjoy their version of Slayer's South of Heaven; a brutal album whose power still comes through even when riffs are cello rather than guitar based!)

We've looked at the work of Andy Rehnfeldt (here's his website; YT channel; Facebook; MySpace; and a random hater!)
Tape-swapping, using the post, was a key means of how emerging genres would evolve and grow back in the 80s; ventures such as this wouldn't have gotten anything like the near 27m views Rehfeldt's vids have enjoyed on YouTube by Nov 2011. His shtick is simple but delivered with real elan: using original video footage, re-present a track re-recorded in an anthitetical musical style - so we get Rebecca Black's Friday as death metal (big improvement there of course!) and some Katy Perry aural atrocity rendered listenable as death metal, but equally Slayer's crushingly heavy Angel of Death as Radio Disney, and Metallica's Enter Sandman as smooth jazz! Have a look and see if he's covered any bands within your genre...



Even Wonderful World gets the death metal treatment...

Kutiman mashes up vids he's found on YouTube

His own site, http://thru-you.com/

Actually mashing video, we have the VJ artist Kutiman, who's had 6.3m hits himself. He runs his own site as well as the YouTube channel; one example of his work follows below

PoMo+MVid IN TV/FILM CULTURE

Its not just MVids that steal from (or intertextually reference if you prefer!) film/TV; it works the other way round too. One of the early signs of MTV moving away from a daily diet of MVids was the show Beavis and Butt-head, here enjoying the 'cymbalism' in Nirvana's iconic Smells Like Teen Spirit...

If you're unfamiliar with this show, try http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-beavis-and-butthead-classic-rock-song-commentaries/ for 10 egs!
This rather mean portrayal of the rock fan as empty-headed moron would also find its way into film, with Wayne's World featuring a pair of yokels fronting their own no-budget cable TV review show; here they review Nirvana's gloriously surreal Heart Shaped Box...

They would also create parodies of videos, such as this one of REM's classic Everybody Hurts...


When talking about TV/film in 2011, it makes sense to consider the web as part of this picture, and fan-vids are part of this postmodern mash-up process; here's a fan-vid of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit where the audio is a fan's band and the footage is B+B edited as if performing...

M.LANG: Focus on singer; CCTV style

The drummer's face is less important than his instrumental prowess. Note too the low-key lighting, customary for rock/Indie (glossy, high-key for pop)

Its one of the most immediately apparent Cs+Cs of m.vids: the focus on the lead singer, through frequency of shots plus framing. The Evanescence What You Want (embedded below, but you can also watch it sans ads at http://loudwire.com/amy-lee-interview-evanescence-return/) is a classic example:

Whilst we get a few shots (MS through to LS) interspersed of band members, often at high angles which obscure their faces and put the focus on their instruments, we never go more than a few seconds without seeing the singer, Amy Lee. She is mainly shown in CU to MS, though some LS included to highlight the band and the excited crowd, a key ingredient in many performance-centred vids.

Predominately CUs to MS of the singer, tho' some LS/MLS are framed to show aud/band

Fans + band both in shot, tho' note the central framing of Lee

The focus-on-singer is taken further by having the singer perform the fictional or dramatic role which we crosscut to; she's running (note the use of coloured contacts as a small but key component of mise-en-scene: this carries connotations of animal/beast, or supernatural) ... and that's pretty much it! This being an emo/goth/metal/Christian metal (there is debate over label applies!) band, moody night-time urban settings, including a bridge (connotations of depression, the suicide impulse?) are used. The band's music is mournful but aggressive, and many commentators would note that many forms of rock music carry out a cathartic function by speaking directly to (especially) teen/youth audiences about tough times and experiences; general alientaion, but doing so in a musical format that enables a physical release of pent-up emotions, and a sense of fellow-feeling/not being alone.

THEORY LINK: The Uses + Gratifications model; especially relevant to discussions of Audience

Band branding is a matter of balance though: a band who are exclusively linked to the image of a singer may suffer issues of credibility. So, while the looks and body of Amy Lee are clearly strongly highlighted throughout this vid, we do, towards the end, see the other band members briefly enter this fictional part of the vid (whether concept or narrative I couldn't say without studying the lyrics).

These sequences are linked by helicopter shots of a city at night: connotations of Gotham City?!

Another band whose vids showcase this tension between highlighting the most marketable component of the band whilst striving for the credibility so critical within the broad rock and Indie genres: Guns 'n' Roses. At their 80s/90s peak, every band member was world-famous, but now its become the sole property of the original singer, W. Axl Rose. Its fascinating to see how 'the band' came back into focus over the years as the marketeers tried to balance out the need to foreground Rose with the need to convince fans that this was a tight unit, a credible, authentic band. One of the iconic images of their ealrier period was of guitarist Slash guitar soloing on a mountain top, seen through a helicopter shot, part of what was then the most expensive music video ever made, November Rain - their videos had to reflect the exceptional fame and standing of the band members, not just the singer.

Heteronormative: crude male gaze

G'n'R are also a useful example of the second point: how 'looking' is handled in vids. Mostly we see a very direct gaze to camera, part of the mode of address making a direct link to the audience. But we also see this notion of looking deconstructed, often in quite a postmodern fashion. G'n'R's Welcome to the Jungle vid features Axl Rose playing himself getting off a bus in LA as a straw-chewing hick (reflecting his actual backstory) ... but he stops to look in the window of a TV store, where every TV is playing a video of ... Axl Rose, performing with G'n'R!

Thats Axl on the TVs...and Slash the passed-out bum outside!

Here, with the Evanescnce vid, we see another very common meme employed: much of the footage of Amy Lee running is distorted and rendered as CCTV. This clearly signifies the zeitgesit: 'we' (in the West) are accustomed to being tracked by cameras in much of our daily lives (there is CCTV in F6, the F-Hall etc!). This device carries connotations of criminality: through Crimewatch and the likes we associate CCTV with criminal behaviour. If you watch Misfits you'll have seen this used. BUT ... aren't there also connotations of the singer's feeling of claustophobia and pursuit at the hands of the very fans being targeted with this video?
ALWAYS  look out for and give consideration to the use of looking/gaze in any vid, including your own!!!

Here's an interesting example of how a vid can be used to signify the personal disclocation of a singer, through the prism of Beavis and Butthead...

M.LANG INDIE: Jesus + Mary Chain

A band notorious for its fraternal flare-ups (the brothers in the band were reknowned for fighting on stage), but also an obstinate attitude towards pop (they were seen as noise-smiths rather than tune-smiths) the Jesus and Mary Chain naturally didn't produce straightforward commercial videos.

Here's examples from classic J+MC tracks which exuded Indie attitude, by which I mean...

• low-key, naturalistic lighting (practical as much as aesthetic: low budget!)
• some strange, elliptical framing
• whip pans that lead to ... nothing!
• distorted footage
• performance which is so wan, exuding such froideur, its the antithesis of the exciting, energising rock performance we're so used to seeing
• the lipsynching in particular is reluctantly done, but shots of drumming and guitar playing also slowed down to be out of synch with the music
• just like Iron Maiden on the German Top of the Pops back in the 80s (when the band swapped intruments repeatedly, making a mockery of the miming) these vids stand as an uneasy compromise: marketing and commercial returns seem like a dirty word to Indie bands and fans BUT the band's record co needs the vids to sell records and the band to raise their profile + build their fanbase
• this reluctant, contrary attitude is also where the Pixies' Velouria single-shot vid arose from
• neither are so surreal as to be not be recognisable as m.vids tho: we see many of the standard signifiers of performance (some focus on singer, MS/MCUs of playing instruments, reasonable pace of editing), its just that the delivery is alien to the hyped up norm

J+MC vids on YouTube.

JUST LIKE HONEY


HAPPY WHEN IT RAINS


APRIL SKIES


HEAD ON

Fisheye + pomo eg: Monster Magnet's Powertrip

Good eg of fisheye at work in this 1998 vid, but also highly postmodern: signifiers of 70s glam as well as modern bling-based R+B and the pimp posturings of many rappers

This is meant to juxtapose the band as authentic but with a sense of humour.

For me it actually screams insincerity - a corporate poodle using a glammed-up, high budget vid to promote the brand message that they're above ... glammed up, high budget vids

Another reading in this - the women sat around the floor seem to me to form an intertextual reference to the classic Electric Ladyland album cover (Jimi Hendrix Experience) from 1968, which I won't embed (for obvious reasons if you're familiar with it)

Playing w/ representation of age: Biggie Smalls vid

NB: This vid does contain very strong language.

Notorious BIG/Biggie Small's 'Sky is the Limit' vid takes on the Bugsy Malone film idea, and casts kids as the adult performers. In this case it is rather dubious, as the girls' roles in particular do seem sexualised (something that should always be avoided at this age range), but it is otherwise a strong example of what can be achieved by playing around with representation of age.
You can watch the vid here.

2vid egs: ProfGreen + Sean Kingston

Looked at these today with 13A, tomorrow with 13C so I'll leave any commenting for now:

Sean Kingston: Party All Night (Sleep All Day)


Professor Green feat, Emeli Sande