The selected
brief I have chosen to do is to create the Promotion Package for the release of
an album, to include a music promo video; together with two of the following
three options: A website homepage for the band, a cover for its release as part
of a digipak (CD/DVD Package) or a magazine advertisement for the digipak
(CD/DVD package).
My chosen
song is ‘Million Dollar Man’ by Lana Del Rey, an American solo-singer. The genre her songs are based on are Indie
Pop, Alternative, Chamber Pop and Sadcore. The song itself is on her latest album but
doesn’t actually have an official music video released, which gives myself more
of a chance to have more freedom on how I portray the image of the music video.
The genre is obviously a mix of sub-genres but is mainly dominated by indie pop
(which is a genre of alternative rock). The conventions seem to be identified
as jangling guitars, 60’s pop and a melodic ‘power pop’ song structure. Lana
Del Rey also bases her image as very vintage and 60’s inspired, which combines
with the musical genre she performs. Similar artists to the genre are Marina
and The Diamonds, Florence and The Machine, Nancy Sinatra and New Young Pony
Club. I have compared conventions in music videos from these artists (We Want
To- New Young Pony Club, Primadonna – Marina and The Diamonds, Nancy Sinatra-
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) and Florence and The Machine – Cosmic Love).
Most videos
of Indie Pop are usually typically of a Performance or Narrative nature. From
the examples that I looked at these all were Performance/Narrative based. The artists are portrayed using mixed
emotions to perform the music, not stereotypically ‘enjoying’ the music like in
many videos, but this is based on the narrative of the videos. The audience Indie Pop is likely to attract
is both male and female, but more elder teenagers (15,16+) to people in their
late 20’s, as Indie Pop was inspired in the 1980’s era.
Also the
Cinematography in these videos uses a majority of close-ups on the
artist/band. None of these show however
the evidence of playing any particular instrument, like on many performance
music videos. Lana Del Rey closely
associates her videos with culture such as war, presidents such as John F
Kennedy, the 60’s and 70’s lifestyle and different interpretations of ‘The American Dream’ . It is different from
many videos nowadays such as R&B where the imagery is hugely populated by
audio-visual sexual nature. This is also
inspired by film maker/director John Waters, and retro photographers Philip Lorca DiCorda and Juergen
Teller. Del Rey also makes prologues or epilogues in some of her music videos,
such as ‘Ride’ or ‘National Anthem’.
The main focus point in these videos always resumes to be the main
artist, even if its Narrative. Within the videos there is always establishing
shot and ELS to show the scene in the music videos. There is also medium close
ups in many of the videos, establishing the artist singing, for example in
Primadonna they are showing Marina singing and showing different emotions. It is clear in all the videos what is going
on and where the artist is established, its just sometimes figuring out the
actual narrative of the video. The
videos create mystery and possibly suspense as the examples I have chose have
unique narrative and keeps the audience wondering what will happen next. You
have to watch the whole of Lana’s videos as they are usually like a small
story. Marina and The Diamonds portray all their music videos as numbered
parts, so this helps them get more attention and views on their videos as the
story/performance is ‘unfinished’. In
Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang the camera only ever zooms in on her or shows her at
LS , MS, or MCU shots, which is the same for the other artists, asides when
there is more extras (i.e in Cosmic Love by Florence+TheMachine where there is
dancers with her). They all use simple camera techniques, not anything that is
more effective as the audience is focused on the narrative of the music video.
The main
used editing techniques are jump cuts and cutaways. In Lana Del Rey’s videos
they use jump cuts for original footage from courtesy of other companies (such
as 60’s era culture etc.) and also
Florence and Marina’s videos to different scenes of the artist (e.g marina in
the garden to when she is in a vintage bedroom.) The editing isn’t always
rhythmical, it may be perhaps because the songs are of a slower tempo.
Crosscutting is used in the videos to show the artist also singing beside the
narrative. Eyeline matches are also used
combined with the crosscutting to emphasis the story.
The
mise-en-scene is important in these videos, as they play such a huge part in
the narrative performance. In literally all these example videos they are based
on 60’s 70’s retro vintage era. In Marina and The Diamonds the house she is
based in all has furniture/décor which would have been popular in that era
e.g)velour bed throws, flock patterned wallpaper, frayed lampshades etc. In
Primadonna and New Young Pony Club’s We Want To there is evidence of old
fashioned televisions (this is also
portrayed in Primadonna as the camera colouring is dated and like Vintage Polaroid
camera shots). Lana Del Rey, New Young Pony Club,and Marina Diamandis all
generally style theirselves in 60’s/70’s/80’s clothing/Vintage fashion,
including hair and make up. Nancy Sinatra was originally from that era so that
would have been ‘modern’ for her at the time.
In the videos asides Marina’s, the others use more sepia tones to
recreate the look of an old fashioned film camera, similar to Marina’s
television screen technique. The scenes Lana uses are created for the
surroundings to be like that area, i.e the street- the shops look like general
shops from the 60’s, instead of modern, like featuring a supermarket/petrol
station, the cars are morris minors, old Cadillac’s etc.
The sound in
the videos is asynchronous diegetic. You don’t see the instruments being played
by the artist/band. The artists also use voice over other scenes where they are
not ‘lip syncing’ which also makes it asynchronous. Also within the narrative
videos there is voices from the extras which you can hear in example when the
president dies in Lana Del Rey’s ‘National Anthem’ the onlookers, screams when
the president is shot in the car.
This is
synchronous diegetic. However it does switch between synchronous and
asynchronous as sometimes the narrative or for example Del Rey’s
prologues/epilogues are used before the song starts and the artist is shown
singing.
The form in
conclusion is Narrative, with some Performance (although this is shown less,
and more in Florence and The Machine). In my examples these are not your
typical ‘studio’ background and more like a storyline. The only text shown in
any of the videos is the opening title of the song/artist. The narrative of
Lana Del Rey’s ‘National Anthem’ is her romance with her husband who is a black
president (considering the segregation era) in the 60’s/70’s, how she is living
the ‘American Dream’ and when he dies at the end (which is portrayed by the
death of American president John F Kennedy.) As previously mentioned she also
shows footage of the 1950’s and so on.
