John Stewart and Julia Kristeva's theories about how media texts are constructed
John Stewart:modern media "incorporates, raids and reconstructs" Julia Kristeva:"any text is the absorption and transformation of another"
These two are basically saying that media takes ideas from other media and uses them either with some edits or just copies them.
I think this is partly true as there are similarities within stuff if the same genre e.g. lots of action movies has the protagonist discovering and stopping the antagonists plans in the end.
Synaesthesia 'A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a colour.'
Narrative
In stories narratives have a beginning, a middle and an ending. However, this doesn't work in as well in songs and the narrative are usually incomplete. This is referred to as a fragmentary narrative.
Fragmentary narratives may help the repeatability of the music promos.
Andrew Goodwin
Andrew Goodwin came up with this theory that music promos it into three different categories to see how they link to the songs. These are the three categories and examples:
Illustration - the promo basically illustrates the ideas/narrative in the song lyric.
An example of this is Within Temptation - Memories.
The narrative fits the song perfectly as it is portraying someone going through their memories which is basically what the lyrics mean.
The editing, camerawork, narrative/performance and the mise-en-scene are pretty conventional for the genre and they help illustrate the meaning behind the song.
Ampification - uses a key idea/image from the lyrics and develops it into a concept within the promo. A link remains between the lyric and the promo.
An example of this is Nightwish 'Storytime'
The lyrics that the promo fits around is the part of the chorus 'I am the voice of Never-never-land,
The innocence, the dreams of every man, I am the empty crib of Peter Pan, ... I am the story that will read you real, Every memory that you hold dear'. This is shown as the costumes they are wearing are different characters ,e.g. the phantom from the Phantom of the Opera, Snow White, but with a slight twist so that they fit in with the genre of the song, e.g., Sow White is slightly gothic. The narrative is a lot of 'behind the scenes' footage of the band members doing other stuff that sort of fits with the lyrics although not as much as the performance narrative which seems to involve scaring the audience/child in the promo.
Disjuncture - the promo bears no resemblance to the lyrics or its meaning; abstract; often seen as unconventional/'arty' videos; creates a new range of meanings for the song.
An example of this is Red Hot Chilli Peppers 'Can't Stop'.
The narrative/performance has nothing to do with the song and seems to mainly be the band making a slightly weird tribute to abstract art.
The camerawork is fairly conventional as there are long shots, mid shots and close ups which are what the majority of music promos have.
The editing is also conventional as there mainly straight cuts and some multiple images.
The mise-en-scene is helps show the disjuncture of the promo. The lighting is artificial and therefor pretty conventional. The costumes are casual clothes so that is also conventional. The location appears to be a studio/warehouse like place. The props are the abstract art tribute that makes the disjuncture very clear as some of the props are bins, lights and a wall.
The 2000s has a range of good music promos. The 2000s also has a range of music genres.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers 'Californication' was a important music promo.
This promo references a much of different video games as well as other media texts in a creative way.
Includes good animation for the time of the band as little video game characters.
Hip hop dominated the early years with artists such as Eminem, Jay-Z, Black Eyed Peas etc.
This is 'Stan' from Eminem.
This promo is illustrative as it illustrates the meaning behind the song with the narrative.
Slipknot's 'Vermillion' music promo is important because of the editing.
This video contains post production techniques such as speeding up one part of the video and slowing down another part.
The narrative fits with a few of the lyrics of the song.
This is from Foo Fighters and is called 'Learn to Fly'.
This promo includes comic references to airplanes and the narrative fits with the song.
The promo does this in a entertaining and rather film like way as the pilots fall unconscious and the band go and fly the plane while one of them reads a book called learn to fly.
A lot of bands that started in the 90s are still around today. Grunge became very popular in this decade and was included in some music promos.
Nirvana was an inspirational band for many bands and people around today. This is the video for 'Come As You Are'.
This video has quite a bit of post production effects such as cross fades and filters.
The video also includes a weapon which could be considered quite controversial because it is a gun.
The Red Hot Chilli Peppers were important to the rise of alternative rock music with their album 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' bringing worldwide attention to this genre of rock music.
This is their song from this album 'Give it Away'. This promo includes post production techniques such as black and white filter.
They are also wearing body paint which could be considered weird and therefor memorable.
The promo also doesn't really have much to do with the lyrics and there doesn't appear to be a narrative.
Green Day was an important band for punk rock in the 90s as no big record label was willing to sign a punk band until Green Days huge success. This was a factor for independent record labels to achieve commercial success such as 'Epitaph Records'.
This is Green Day's single 'Basket Case' released in 1994.
The promo has post production techniques such as the colour filter. These are used to enhance the promo.
The promo also involves special effects make up for the ward guys heads.
David Bowies promo for 'Ashes to Ashes' costed £250,000 which was very expensive in the 80s and was one of the most expensive music promos of the time.
This promo consisted of the following conventions: surreal locations, images within images, extreme close ups and strange costumes.
The next important music promo of the decade was Devo 'Whip it' as it is argued to be among the first true long term video production.
The promo was quite weird so it was memorable. The promo also borrows things from other texts.
Another important thing of the decade was the creation of MTV. The Monkees member Mike Nesmith created it as he had an idea of filling an entire network with music promos 24/7. It was a good idea as it only costed royalties to bands. This changed music promos as people started to make big budget TV friendly promos so that MTV would play them on the shows.
Another important promo of the 80s was Michael Jacksons 'Thriller'. This was a no 1 single and costed a vast amount of money. This is mainly because it is a short story in itself as well as a music promo.
This music promo includes references to early/50s horror movies, storyline over story, iconic dance and the storyline fits the performance. This all makes the promo such a memorable and unique music promo.
Aerosmith/Run DMC 'Walk This Way' provided a crossover of rap and rock music and broke the white dominance that MTV created. After this promo MTV started to play more promos from people who weren't white males.
This promo shows representations of a white rock band and black rappers and how different they the environments they play music in are different.
Madonna's 'Like A Prayer' broke the traditional single - album - tour format because of MTV as Madonna made money from her singles. It also involves controversies like featuring a black Jesus and her representations of race.
The narrative enhances the song as there are literal representations of the lyrics. The narrative and performance intertwines. This is conventional for modern day pop promos.
In 1972-3, David Bowie had promos for his songs 'John, I'm Only Dancing' and 'The Jean Genie'.
'John, I'm Only Dancing' was turned down by the BBC due to homosexual undertones being distasteful and Top of the Pops replaced the promo with a biker and dancers.
The music promo for 'The Jean Genie' was shot in one day and was edited in less than 2 days. The promo contains a performance due to the live clips and a slight narrative.
Queens 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is also an important promo.
Queen made this promo free of charge to networks, making sure it was played everywhere and it got to number 1 for ages due to it being very popular. It was thought to be the first promo, probably due to the narrative being separate to the performance. In the narrative there is several post production techniques such as the echo effect and multiple images.
The British show 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' made a lot of promos for the show throughout the 70s. The idea of the Old Grey Whistle Test was for the bands to have a slot of time to be impressive while they often played to bare studios or walls.
In the early 60s most of the promos didn't have much of a narrative and were mostly performances of the band.
However, The Beatles changed this and set out what we expect from a music promo nowadays with their promo 'A Hard Day's Night' in 1964. This was from a film they had made, like a lot of other bands.
Another impressive promo from the 60s is 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' by Bob Dylan.
This promo broke conventions as the promo is one take of Bob Dylan holding cards with lyrics from the song on in an urban setting. This broke conventions as the promo doesn't really have a clear performance or a narrative included in it.
Another important thing that came out of the 60s was the music program 'Top of the Pops'.
This is because Top of the Pops was based on singles and had the band mime along to the single while on stage in front of a large audience. When the band couldn't appear on the show there were a dance band that would dance along to the song and then there were short films that the bands had probably made. This was a forerunner of music promos. Top of the Pops also got the bands that played on them a lot of money and slightly more fame so bands wanted to get their songs played on the show.
The colour music promo 'Strawberry Fields Forever' from The Beatles was also important for the history of music promos. This was because it was the very first purpose-made concept video that attempted to illustrate the song.
There is also a lot of post production effects such as film transitions/effects, sped/slowed shots, colour filters and warping the images. There was also a canted angle, narrative and reverse shots. This all makes the audience feel like the are on drugs.
The Monkees 'A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You'
This promo is important as The Monkees was a constructed band for a US TV show and they established certain conventions; surrealism, jump cuts etc. The promo includes these conventions: film within a film, band apart of narrative, jump cuts and speeding up. These are important as a lot of artists/bands nowadays use these conventions in their promos.
