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Music Video Case Study (1) Gorillaz, Feel Good Inc


Music Video Case Study (2) Childish Gambino, Bonfire


Music Video Case Study (3) Jack Harlow, What's Poppin'


Music Video Case Study (4) Joji, Tick Tock



Andrew Goodwin Music Video Analysis

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin was a popular culture academic. He wrote a book called Dancing in the Distraction Factory in 1992. He came up with 6 certain criteria that he believed all popular music videos would follow in order to increase their popularity with audiences. These six criteria include connections between visuals and lyrics, connections between music and lyrics, genre stereotypes, close up shots of the artist who made the song, voyeurism, and intertextual references.

Music Video Analysis



How to Eat Life is a song by the Japanese artist Eve Mv. The lyrics are in Japanese, but it the youtube video has English subtitles, and you can find the lyrics in both languages on multiple websites that are easy to find just by googling them. The song and music video are about Inochi-kun (the grey haired main character) and his journey towards becoming the person he wants to be. The names of the characters can be found on this ideas sheet here. The other notable ones from this video are the Headless Dragon (the flying monster who appears chasing Inochi-kun) and Noppo (the sometimes backpack shaped monster). The only other character majorly featured in this video is Hitotsume, a character who has been used in multiple music videos by Eve such as Literary Nonsense and Dramatury to represent society's perspective.

1. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying, or contradicting the lyrics. 


As the singer explains how "the thorns of the words I've gulped down stab me", Inochi-kun is holding an empty glass in his hand, and after he shakes it the lyrics added onto the video fall onto him. The glass is an obvious reference to how he "gulped" down the words, and the lyrics falling on him reflects the idea of how they "stab me" and connects the movement of the lyrics with the movement of the glass. This could suggest that he has held himself back from asking for help or talking to other people, and now he regrets it as his suffering has become internal, the orange background where Inochi-kun sits representing his mental state.


The singer describes a "Mad Hatter" vanishing, and in the background of the shot you see a shutter closing, hiding the people behind it from the view of the characters. The "Mad Hatter" could be a reference to Hitotsume, who appears in this video a few times to "watch" Inochi-kun's progress towards becoming the person he wants to be, which is what this song is about, and to judge it. Inochi-kun wants to reach out for help, but his personal development is something he has to work on himself, so the "Mad Hatter" disappears.

2. There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying, or contradicting the music.


As the "camera" inside the video rewinds, the music gains a robotic tone whilst continues until the end of this section. The idea of something recorded being rewound links to the themes of the past and being watched that this video has used. The "camera" and this rewind effect suggests that Inochi-kun is going back to his past self, and that society (Hitotsume) is watching his decisions carefully.


At the very beginning of the song, the hook stops playing for a moment, starting again with the first drumbeat of the song, which lines up with Inochi-kun hitting the ground. Interestingly, the shots of Inochi-kun's fall and the Headless Dragon's head falling are connected. As the Dragon's head (Inochi-kun's past self) hits the ground, Inochi-kun (his present self) opens his eyes. The drumbeat establishes the connection between the two and the end of one signaling the start of the other.

3. Genres are complex and diverse in terms of music video style and iconography.


Eve Mv's music videos are usually either J-Rock or J-Pop. All of his music videos are animated, including those he does with other artists like Sou Mv, another J-Rock artist. There is some iconography in Eve's videos, mostly the monstrous characters or Zingai such as Hitotsume, but since it is animated there aren't many examples of physical objects you would find anywhere else, like rappers talking about Rolex or their cars. Although most of Eve's videos have a different colour palette and sometimes animation studio too, How to Eat Life is actually very similar, in colour at least, to Tokyo Ghetto, another of his videos.

4. Record companies will require a lot of close ups of their stars/performers.


Almost all of Eve Mv's songs (and a lot of Japanese music videos in general) are animated rather than performed. Even when Eve sings in music videos from other artists who perform live, he doesn't show his face, and neither do the band playing the instruments. In fact a theme of a lot of his songs is the separates between your "public self" and "true self" (in the examples above, from Dramaturgy and As You Like It). The same applies to this video, which doesn't show Eve's face and has heavy themes of internal struggle, showing three aspects of the main character Inochi-kun (his present self), the Headless Dragon (his past self), and Noppo (his future/preferred self). 

5. Voyeurism.


The closest thing to voyeurism this video has is the nature of the video as the story of Inochi-kun's personal development. If Inochi-kun is meant to be a reflection of Eve himself, then this video could be seen as a look into his personal opinions and experiences as an artist. The content of this video is very personal in nature, although it portrays that as a part of the character rather than as a part of the artist himself. Other than that, there isn't anything like sexual content or intimate behaviour in the video.

6. There is likely to be intertextual references to other music videos, tv shows, books, games, etc.


This shot of Inochi-kun looking inside a trashcan and the few frames where body parts appear inside it is a reference to another video by Eve Mv, Tokyo Ghetto, which ends with this happening to the protagonist of that video. What it means for this video is that Inochi-kun is looking through what other people have thrown away (i.e. their past) in order to find something he can use to help develop himself into the person he wants to be.


In the painting that the camera scrolls past, we see a few characters from other Eve videos, firstly Hitotsume, the character on the left of the first image, a figure who has appeared in a lot of Eve's music videos, including Dramaturgy and most notably Literary Nonsense. This character is meant to represent society's views of a person, and he appears multiple times in this video to "watch" Inochi-kun. Next to him are the three main characters from As You Like It, and in the second shot you can also see the three main characters from Tokyo Ghetto. These characters all have blacked out faces, even Hitotsume, who only had a single eyeball for a face anyway. This is likely just a reference to how Inochi-kun has been avoiding the people around him because of his uncertainty, and the characters from previous videos are here as fun cameos for people who have watched them. 

Music Video Director Infographic

Otis - Kanye West, Jay Z

American Idiot - Green Day

My Three Song Choices



Algorhythm - Childish Gambino (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwVGJZdLNBs)





Music Choices

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

Crazy fits the songs title and is easy to create multiple visuals for because the lyrics create a sense of insanity and madness. Almost any visuals would work due to this aspect of the song. Plus, this song has the advantage of looking interesting, because the tone of the song would require creative imagery. The issue with this song is that it would be hard to combine the story of the lyrics with crazy, kaleidoscope imagery.

Call Missed - Xavier Wulf

Call missed has a clear tone to it's lyrics and the song itself, so it would be easy to create visuals to match that tone. Additionally, the song has easily understandable lyrics, which would make it easy to create a story in the music video. The issue with this song is that the lyrics are very repetitive, so finding new imagery each time might be more difficult than the others.

This is the song we chose in the end since it had the clearest imagery out of the three and it would be the easiest to create a music video around it. 

Never - Mag.lo feat. O_super

Never is a song with a lot of possible imagery that could fit with it's tone, lyrics, and themes. The song is good enough to keep listeners listening for 6 minutes, so it would be interesting to create imagery that also helps keep the listeners attention for that time. It also changes tone in parts of the song, which would be interesting to convey through a video. The issue with this song is that as it is 6 minutes, creating enough footage to last that time would be difficult.

Mood-Board (Call Missed)

Snow
Neon
Loneliness
Arcade
Missed Calls
Campfire



Treatment

The Decemberists - Severed (Directed by Morgan Gruer)



The treatment starts off with the elevator pitch and by explaining the meaning behind this concept. They provide a lot of visual examples for the reader to convey the kind of imagery they want to create. After the basic idea and some examples, they go more in depth about the idea and explain how the imagery will create a particular message and why it matches with the song. The cut out, hand drawn animation style they want to go for is made obvious by the large amount of visual references provided in the presentation, in between almost all of their points. They go on to explain the execution and showcase the amount of thought that has gone into every aspect of the plan. It ends with more visual references, and then the sign off. 

This video was made on a low budget and with very little time, but the main concept and the delivery of those ideas is very similar between the video and the presentation. Since this is a very abstract video concept and hard to explain fully with words, providing a lot of examples makes the idea clear and easy to see. The presentation itself has the same appearance and tone as the video and concepts that they are trying to convey, which works really well in presenting their ideas. 

Gone - JR. JR. (Directed by Los Perez)



The slides included in this treatment explains the primary concept of the video, the reasoning behind that choice, and how Los Perez wants to achieve it. The presentation starts by explaining the idea of dancing disembodied legs, the meaning behind it and why it fits with the song itself. Then they move on to how they want to create this imagery with green screen, providing examples of how they want it to look, and then afterwards describing the outfits they want to use and location references to show the reader the contrast-full appearance they want to go for. Finally, the provide examples of even more abstract imagery they could use in the video, continuing the previously established theme, and then they sign off to finish the presentation.

The use of examples makes the imagery very clear to the reader, which might not have been easy to convey with just words. The colourful presentation of the slides fits with the tone that Los Perez is describing and the tone in the final video. The treatment is very well structured in order to make it easy to understand, using different sections and short descriptions to describe what they want to do with the video. The extra notes on the presentation help make the idea clear, e.g. when they point out that the examples provided are not meant to be the costume designs for the actors, and then they move on to talking about how they want the choreography to look; it clears up any possible misunderstandings before they happen and creates a clear image for the concept plan.

Delta Heavy - White Flag (Directed by Najeeb Tarazi)



This treatment starts by explaining the meaning of the song and then explains the aesthetic and story that would go best with this song in particular. It provides pixel art examples, both for the characters and also for the backgrounds, covering each aspect of the video they want to create. Then they provide a script/timeline to show exactly what happens in the video and how it lines up with the song. 

This presentation is more simple but also more effective than the other two. It explains directly, using timestamps and examples, exactly what will happen and when. Najeeb Tarazi focuses just as much on the song itself as it does on the imagery of the video they want to create. Although it seems a lot shorter than the others, it uses it's time a lot more effectively, not repeating itself like the treatment for severed and quickly and easily conveying exactly how they want the video to look. It does everything it needs to do without taking up too much space or time. 

Top Three Tips for a Useful Treatment

Use examples to convey the imagery you want to create.
Be specific (could do a timeline or explain what techniques you want to use for example).
Keep it simple, so it's easy to understand and read quickly.

Proof of Concept



Through this proof of concept footage we tested lip syncing and hue changes. The video starts with a red hue to convey the singer's anger, then slowly becomes more blue as the video goes on. In the concept, we planned to include a larger variety of shots over a variety of different locations, so the transition would be smoother than this, but the lip syncing worked well with the video and switching shots along with the beat worked well with this type of song. The black screens that go along with the overlaid audio clips were a stand in for cutting to the phone, to test if it would work to cut away from the performer at certain points of the song, and I think this test determined this would be possible.

Evaluation

Overall I think if each shot was worked perfectly into the video it would look better, but as a proof of concept, it accurately displays how we want elements of the song to be translated into the video. I think the hue effects should be turned down when we edit the actual video, because in this test they were too obvious and distracting, and I think in the final version we should make use of lots of different locations to make each part of the video interesting, as keeping everything in one place becomes repetitive and is difficult to edit into a proper video.

Music Video Roles

Producer

The producer is the person who allows for everything to happen. Finding shooting locations and making sure they are available, getting equipment, finding people, everything necessary to actually make the music video in the first place. Without someone doing the work of a producer, you wouldn't have a shooting location, you wouldn't have equipment when you need it, you wouldn't be able to film anything from the beginning. They also coordinate the efforts of the rest of the team to make sure they are functioning properly and efficiently.

Production Designer

The production designer works closely with the director and the producer in order to create the visual design of the production. The style of the music video is created by them, through lighting, sets, graphics, and costumes. They are responsible for making the music video look good and consistent. Whilst the producer organises the set and the actors, the production designer brings it all together to create the design of the music video itself. 

Cinematographer

The cinematographer oversees the exact filming of the music video. Cameras, lighting, colour, those aspects of a production are controlled by them. If the director asks for a dutch tilt or a trolley shot, then the cinematographer is responsible for creating those shots with their camera and equipment. They have the final say on the precise angle and perspective of each shot type, taking the director's instructions and making them into video.

Director

The director supervises all elements of a production, and directs everyone in the group in a way that best brings out the cast's own skills whilst also creating something unique to that group. They explain the shot types, create the storyboards, insure the design of the production is up to standard, instruct everyone in the group in order to actually create the final music video. They decide how the cast acts, and the cast carries out their instructions. 

My Role

I believe I would be best suited to the production designer role. In the treatment, I already did design the basic look and breakdown of the music video we want to create, explaining the meaning behind my choices and why it matches the song's tone and the lyric's meaning. I believe I have an eye for aesthetics that would elevate this production through the look of the video. 

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