Codes & Conventions

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.