Case Study
By looking at a couple of Selena Gomez's music videos, I'm going to talk about a few of the things that go into music videos. What do they put into music videos and why? All of Selena's songs show her singing, pretty much throughout the whole video. That's one thing that stays the same in her music videos. Other aspects in them are different however, depending on what the music video is. For example A Year Without Rain doesn't have much special effects and remains rather simple. On the other hand Naturally has several special effects throughout the whole video and gives of a much more complicated vibe. A Year Without Rain also has a noticeable narrative, one that makes sense and fits with song. Naturally however has no narrative and seems considerably more surreal thanks to the special effects and the fact that Selena's hair randomly changes in length for seemingly no reason at all. A narrative music video creates a story to go with the song. Sometimes the story is obvious in the song itself, other times it's less so. A narrative music video gives the viewer a bigger understanding of the song and thus increases their connection to the song. Narrative music videos make it a lot easier to insert lyric interpretation into the music videos and extend or consolidate the meaning behind the song. In fact without any narrative at all doing such a thing would probably be impossible. Surreal music videos have a different purpose however. While they can contain a narrative of sorts, usually they don't make any sense, they do this because they want people to watch the music video again. If one can’t make any sense of the music video the first time around they might watch it again to try to figure out what was happening. A Year Without Rain is pretty straightforward in its story, they make the message being given in the song quite literal. In the music video Selena is in a desert or some kind of really dry area, eventually this guy shows up and it starts raining, so it makes the message a lot more obvious than it had been before. As a result A Year Without Rain consolidates the meaning of the song though it’s music video. Other music videos will extend the meaning of their songs, often inserting a meaning that might not have been noticeable before instead of just reinforcing a meaning that was pretty easily noticeable. Doing something like that would probably be a lot more beneficial considering it would give the audience something new instead of just telling them what they already knew and putting it into video form. The editing for A Year Without Rain is pretty slow and they don't contain many drastic changes between one cut and the next. Ironically Naturally's cuts seem a lot more unnatural, they change quickly and there's several different instances of drastic changes occurring like Selena's outfit being noticeably different from what it was in the previous shot and, once again, these changes don’t seem to have any reason behind them. The cuts usually match the speed of the song. If it's a fast song then the cuts will probably be fast, if it's a slow song then the cuts will probably be slow. The message of the song can affect the cuts though, which could end up making the cuts slower or faster than the song. Making the cuts match the song’s speed is more visually appealing, it wouldn’t look as good if the cuts were slower or faster than the song’s speed however doing something like that could create meaning, it would just have to make sense in the context of the song and any established story line. There are multiple different things you could put into a music video to make it effective however you would have to be careful, you can't just throw everything in there. You'd have to make sure it makes somewhat sense especially if there is even a small amount of narrative present in the music video itself. here to edit.
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Purposes of Music Video Music Videos are produced for multiple reasons. People produce them because they can be beneficial to them in more than one way. These are; extension of income, entertainment and longevity.
One reason for creating Music Videos is because it can increase the amount of money they make. Music Videos promote their tours, albums, singles and record labels, if those things are promoted then more people will know about them, which would mean more people will pay money to go to concerts and buy albums, which would then serve to make them more money. It also raises the audience's awareness of the artist, which would probably end in them getting new fans and would remind the audience to buy their albums and tracks. Entertainment is another reason music videos are created, they do this by invoking an audience reaction through controversy (Taylor Swift-Wildest Dreams), creating a visual experience that links to the song that the audience will remember (The band OK Go do this a lot , giving the audience a better understanding of the singer itself, provides a visual experience that will allow the fans to feel closer to the artist and demonstrating the talent of the artist or band. Music Videos also increase exposure to the artist or band and expand their profile another thing music videos do is keep the artist/band current. The more memorable the music video is the longer it will remain current. Helping more people to find the video. Music videos also allow more outlets to be used such as; music channels, DVDs, CDs, Websites and downloads. The more outlets available, the more money made. Synergy is when different companies work together in order to promote a range of products related to each other. The creators will enable various products such as clothing, games, bedlinen and more. The distributor will agree licensing deals so companies can make and sell these products. As a result an amount of the profits will go to the distributor. Convergence is where a range of media platforms are all within the same single piece of media technology. This exists because media institutions realised that people really liked used the kind of technology that allowed them to do multiple different things on the same piece of technology. For example, people want to be able to play a game on a console but would like to be able to watch a DVD on the same console in addition to that the Playstation 4 is a console that will allow you to do that). In conclusion the main purpose for creating music videos is money, all the things listed above would lead to an increase in the amount of money they would earn and that means that Music Videos are created for the primary purpose of making as much money as possible. here to edit. |