In my early teens I was fascinated by the music video. Music videos I believe is on of the most artistically stylized mediums to really be excepted by the corporation and the public. People who make music videos are free to be as avantgarde as they wish and still gain audience appreciation and engagement. Despite the negative press MTV gets about influencing bad behavior on a generation of people the truth of the matter is the MTV music video seen has captivated and inspired many a youth in this wonderful world of art and music. Both mediums of motion photography and music are synonymous with one another. Almost like a dance of the senses.
In all my research, I find there are only two categories of music video branding. The first type of music video is focused on just the artest or artests. This form of music video display the artest throughout the video non stop so people can associate the artest with and there music. This is a way of developing a social iconic figure. The second type of music video focuses on the song and the story or meaning of the song usually attributed with visual symbols or abstract visuals or colors to represent the meaning or emotion of the lyrics or instrumental rhythm.
There are many different types of music and that music translates into a visual standard and visual tempo.
When producing a music video one must take in to the account of the over all message of the song. This can be tricky and the fact is there are many songs that if you actually get the meaning behind the words the visuals may not be all that appropriate. That is, keeping the video PG13 to adhere to FCC regulations. The other thing is when reaching a large audience the video is really only there to brand the music and the artest respectively.
Carful brand management and image association with a particular music or artest is key in targeting a particular group of people. So before any planing, the filmmaker must find out what image that artest wants people to associate them with.
Once you figure that out then you can start dissecting the music and lyrics for visual translation.
I think there are three different of music video types. There is the emotional driven music video, the lifestyle driven music video and the mood driven music video. These music video types can be intermixed depending on the type of music and the style associated with a type of music. There is music out there that mixes different music categories. For instance rap mixed with classical or rock mixed with classical or rock mixed with rap or electronic mixed with rock and rap. The combinations of mixing different music categories is limitless. I think some of the best examples of this is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YxaaGgTQYM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq-rmNNYqos
Metallica - Devil's Dance(S&M)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UaUUMQaKys
The combos of music categories can make for some pretty awesome music. The point I am trying to make is with every music category you have in a sound track is a another visual style you have to account for.
The emotional driven music video is typically associated music such as rock where the lyrics are intentionally symbolic in meaning from an experience and emotional connection. Often emotional driven music has a story behind it and in a poetic way, expressing inner desires and thoughts. This music tends to be abstract taking bits and pieces of emotional context and expressing wants and needs. Usually these types of music have a deep and powerful meaning behind them.
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Songwriters: Cobain, Kurt; Novoselic, Krist; Grohl, David;
Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
The choice is yours, don't be late
Take a rest as a friend
As an old
Memoria, memoria
Memoria, memoria
Come doused in mud, soaked in bleach
As I want you to be
As a trend, as a friend
As an old
Memoria, memoria
Memoria, memoria
And I swear that I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun
Memoria, memoria
Memoria, memoria
(No I don't have a gun)
And I swear that I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun
Memoria, memoria
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Everything To Me lyricsI bet it makes you laugh
Watching me work so hard to reach you
You never gave a damn
About all of those things I did to please you
All that you wanted, you found somewhere else
And nothing could drag you away from yourself
Do you really know me at all?
Would you take the time to catch me if I fall?
Are you ever gonna be that real to me?
Everything to me
Lucky I've been through hell
Backroads and shortcuts I know them well
Baby just stick with me
We'll make it together, just wait and see
Do you really know me at all?
Would you take the time to catch me if I fall?
Are you ever gonna be that real to me?
Everything to me
The walls they close in
The air it goes out
We're left with nothing but a shadow of doubt
Nobody talks, no one is here
It's just you and me
Do you really know me at all?
Would you take the time to catch me if I fall?
Are you ever gonna be that real to me?
Everything to me
Do you really know me at all?
Would you take the time to catch me if I fall?
Are you ever gonna be that real to me?
Everything to me
I bet it makes you laugh
Watching me work so hard to reach you
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as you can see these types of songs have deep emotional contexts that usually have a story behind them, but it comes from a inner emotional drive.
Lifestyle music usually associates with culture or social groups. In a sense, lifestyle music is more of a peer driven music. Rap is a good example of this because many rappers use profanity, and talk about money, sex, and power. Usually things that are superficial, but not always. Music videos like this typically have attractive people in the mix, money or things of high monetary value, party scenes mixed with drugs and violence or at least suggested drugs and violence. This may sound stereotypical, but its a fact that many popular artest express them selfs in this way. Rap is rooted from tribal music. A lot of rap is procession based with a rhythm.
Rap style dates back to the traditional West African story telling that it predates thedevelopment of the slave trade. Tribal history would be recited in a rhythmic manner to the drum beats and stamping of feet within the tribal village square and session would often last through the night or at least till early morning.
This style of storytelling never really died in the US and the Caribbean but was not considered music. During the slave years African Americans hung onto anything that gave them roots leading to rap rightfully being considered a parent style to blues, even to the extent of blues singers who incorporated rap into songs as far back as the 1920s.
The idea behind Rap or hip hop and so on relies on tribes or groups of people that tell a story based on life experiences such as money sex and power. Its only natural to see and have groups of people in a rap music video because the music itself is social and a collective. Unlike emotional music that focuses on the personal self, Lifestyle music focuses on a group and Social Influence and Conformity.
Social conformity is a direct result of wanting to fit in to something that some how fits our desires or desires we did not know we wanted to have.
Emotional driven music is really an inner expression projecting an outer need or want, but lifestyle driven music is an outer expression that drives to attain an inner needs or wants.
Humans are pretty simple creatures and we tend to make things complicated because of our own selfish needs wants and desires. We all need the fundamental needs such as love, desire to be touched, to be secure and or stable, etc... Most all popular music out there has a universal theme connected to all humanity in one way or another. Wether we like the music or not, popular music is popular because people can connect with it. For instance the love song. There are billions of love songs out there because the whole world wants and needs to be loved in some way or another.
So when producing a music video do not over look the universal constructs. There is nothing wrong with having an abstract video as long as people can associate or connect with the visuals and the music in some way. Most of the time if an artest has a group of followers with a buzz then the odds are the visual elements are already laid out. The music is in essence the script. The lyrics are the key and the artest intent and inspiration behind the lyrics and music is the door. You must know and understand both before you can every make any interpretations.
If you have any visual techniques that you want to employ or if you have any locations you have in mind keep those in the back of your mind till you get all the details from the artest. Last thing you need is mixing your personal style with theirs.
let the music and the artest do all the speaking and suport that inspiration with the resources and creative techniques that match the music.
Mood driven music is another type of music that is harder to tackle because it is usually instrumental or
electronic. Why this is so hard is because describing mood is like describing color. No one can truly describe color we can only associate color with people places or things. Anytime you have mood driven music you can expect that the video is going to be very abstract and it may not make sense to any one. Connecting one image or color to the next can be very challenging but if done right those seemingly unconnected images can inspire in us a particular mood. For example the color blue can express sadness and if the music connecting the pice expresses that then the person watching the music video might feel sad or associate that as a sad scene.
I think blue man group is the most famous for mood driven music.
This is a good example of a mood driven music video.
Panic Girl "Burn And Rise"
Mood music is not always depressing it can be fun to like blue man group. Mood music really relies on color, texture and associated images that provoke mood. Mood music is typically disassociated with any particular event or experience, but rather the music it self along with the visuals should invoke the audience to have a particular mood because of the sounds and the visuals stimulus. Mood music is really about projecting energy that intern invokes our body to produce chemicals that cause us to resonate to that tone or rhythm. Color and texture is known to provoke mood in us and the combination with mood driven music allows for a more rich experience. I use the term mood music to define music that has little to no lyrics and when lyrics are used they are almost scattered and random as seen in short poetry. The words are there to effect thoughts, or ideas, but not to express a story as a whole. Maybe parts of a story, but this type of music focuses on moments in time where mood takes place or ideas, thoughts or actions.
Music videos many times will require a location to shoot, but not always. After studding many music videos I have found that there are three types of of locations to shoot the music video. The first location is the one that looks and feels artistically pleasing to the eye, The second is the one that tells the story and the third is a concert setting or studio.
I find the artistic setting to be annoying to watch because because I some times feel that shooting a location just because it looks good does not always stay true to the music behind it. Some times its ok not to follow the lyrics literally with visuals because those lyrics could be symbolic rather then litteral or NC17.
This is a good example:
"On To The Next One" Video! Jay-Z | Swizz Beatz
99 PROBLEMS
Jay-Z - Lost One ft. Chrisette Michele
I am not picking on Jay-z btw, I think he is a good rapper and the music videos are a wonderful example of videos that just use a location back drop primarily for artistic purposes with little visuals supporting the actual lyrics.
Music videos that focus on telling the story threw the lyrics is one of my favorite videos to make because it feels more rich and real.
Pearl Jam - Jeremy
Coldplay - The Scientist
Kelly Clarkson - Because Of You
These are very powerful videos that have varying locations to tell the story. As you can see from the video, the story uses more connective symbols rather then obvious linear story progression. These videos take visual parts of a bigger story that focuses on emotion or visual parts that lead to or segest emotion. Humans inherently associate people, places and things because that is how we connect to the world around us.
The concert setting or studio setting location I don't think I need to explane, but it has a lot of viability. there are people just want to see there favorite munitions on stage or see them during the process of recording. Its probably a more personal and real approach to a music video. But in many cases these concert locations or studio recording locations are not always pleasing to the eye. So judgment is needed for something like this.
Making a music video is not as complex as it seems, but nonetheless, A good music video has an element that makes it unique, like a twist or a turn in visual direction. Kind of an unavailing or surprise. AKA a hook and a payoff.
Don't forget listen to the artest and the lyrics and let it guide your visual direction. From the filmmakers perspective, making a music video is like doing an adaptation of a famous book, comic book or life story. A music artest work is just that, a life story of emotion and experience. The key to any successful music video is working within the confins of the artest's inspiration and expression.
By
Robert Sawin
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