[Research] Famous Music Videos of All Time

For this prezi, we looked into famous music videos of all times and I looked into the mentioned music videos by Watchmojo,com to see what they thought was the most famous music videos of all time. This helped me get an idea as to how these music videos became so popular and famous and how I could try to do that with my own.

[Research] Famous CD covers of All Time

We has a look at past album covers that are still famous to this day, the reason we looked at them is to get inspiration for our own albums and what they could look like as well as a meaning that's hidden beneath it all.

 

[Research] Music Video Regulation

Below is a presentation I made on how music videos are regulated and we all researched about such to get a better idea on why and how music videos are regulated.

[Research] Case Study of a Specific Music Video Director: Mark Romanek

For my case study, I decided to have a look at the music video director; Mark Romanek - whose "directing work includes feature films, music videos, and commercials" as stated by Wikipedia. I decided to look and him and his work and noticed he had done quite a few music videos that I have seen before and very much enjoyed. I think his style of music video, in more recent years, is quite close to the style I want to aim for except I won't be including the artist singing like he has done.

His most famous music video was the cover by Johnny Cash of Nine Inch Nail's song "Hurt" which was extraordinarily moving to both critics and fans alike. The song expresses "self-loathing and the futility of worldly accomplishments" as it was a song sung by Johnny Cash "near the end of his life" and within his own home.
IMDb have said that Romanek had decided to film Johnny Cash's music video for "Hurt" for free for it had moved him plenty as well. After filming it, Romanek sent it to the singer of Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor whom "was in session with Zack De La Rocha (of Rage Against the Machine fame)" at the time and upon watching, both had to leave the room as they were both brought to tears by the video.
The video was nominated for seven VMAs, he won one for cinematography, and also won his third Grammy for such a moving music video as there are many snippets of a younger and cockier version of Cash which I found to be quite sad yet sweet.
 His latest music video that he directed is Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" as they worked on it over the course of three days. The video itself had mixed views of both positive and negative - some found it cringe worthy, uncomfortable and mocking, the positive views on this though was that it was funny, quite entertaining and appealed to all ages, yet was apparently "ill-timed" according to the website HitFlix due to many debates that was happening at the time.

I've noticed that Mark includes the artist in all of his music videos and somewhat follows the genre theory for the few that I have watched by him as the music videos he has made often follows the genre of the band themselves. For example, Nine Inch Nail's song "Perfect Drug" had quite a dark and horror kind of theme for the music video which matched with the bands dark lyrics and deep sound of the instruments - this is the same for Johnny Cash's video for "Hurt" which seemed to be a reminiscing kind of song and which was shown through all the old tapes used in the music video. IMDb have stated this his style is ever similar to "Stanley Kubrick's style in filming."

I decided to look into the past of Mark Romanek as well since this is a case study and found out that he inspired to be a film director thanks to the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey at age 9" as he then started experimenting with different types of filming equipment throughout the years. He then went to college and in which case got a degree in cinema and photography as he worked as an assistant in directing to Brian De Palma, during the making of Home Movies, "an autobiographical film De Palma conceived as an exercise for his students". Romanek's first feature film was "Static", released in 1986 and as about a man who "claimed to have invented a television set capable of showing a live picture of Heaven" as this film had ended up creating a cult in London.

[Research] Controversy in Music Videos

We had a look at an article from the Q Magazine which talked about Rihanna's latest music video and the controversy that came with it. This helped us look a bit more into what people think of as controversial and how many views are actually subjective.

The article explains the video of "Bitch Better Have My Money" by Rihanna and how it's all about how Rihanna tries to get her money back from the accountant that stole it all from her, from (basically) killing his wife to then stabbing the accountant. The article makes many references to other music videos such as Taylor Swift's Bad Blood and how that also went down the same line as Rihanna's new video as Taylor's music video was a much more tame version compared to the others although did go down that route of including blood and violence when it wasn't necessary. The article then states how Kendrick Lamar released a clip to his newest song and music video and how it brings back what music videos were all about and how it was more "original, beautiful, moving and thought provoking" than Rihanna's music video.

I think that the writer of the article was quite correct in the point he was trying to get across, after all, what was shown in the music video was not needed and was quite out of the box, sure, but was definitely not necessary in my eyes.

Controversy seems to play quite a large role in the music videos as it gets both press attention as well as the 'hits' they want. Making a controversial music video will only cause press to riot and talk about it which will draw ever more attention towards it, making the public curious as to what is so bad about a music video and will then lead to more and more people watching it. Whereas on the other hand, if press said nothing about it, then it wouldn't be seen as much nor be bothered about too greatly. It seems that both forms, press and 'hits', is what controversial music videos aims for.

It could be argued that there is a political message in the music video though in some sense if you look between the lines. It's the thought of Rihanna doing whatever she wants in order to simply get her money back, showing desperation for such a thing which could be said the same for politicians and democrats to some degree. If viewing this in a metaphorical sense with Rihanna representing someone of high standing and those who are working with her as agents or 'cleaners' then it could show people as being money driven and willing to only do things for the sake of such and to go to such lengths as well is quite a disturbing thought to say the least.

[Textual Analysis] Applying Genre Theories to a Music Video

We had a look at a music video of our choice and applied the genre theories to them as to get a better idea of the whole concept of genre's "limiting the creativity of a band/artist" as people would say. Below is my textual analysis of such and gave me a better insight into genres and what is seen as typical for a certain genre and what isn't.

[Main Task] Creating a Full Length Music Video

We're back after the six week holidays as well as getting results and have begun our main task which is making a full length music video. In this we'll be looking many other different music videos and how they differ from one another depending on their genre. We will also be including some theories and applying them to the textual analysis's we will be presenting.

For the main task, I have decided to create a music video for the song "Pieces of the People We Love" by The Rapture, I thought about using this song because of how unique it was and the steady beat for the entire course of the song. I am thinking of making references to many things such as video games as well as a few other music videos as the effects they used have inspired me to add them in my own.