Regulators

Regulators

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Regulators/regulations- A set of rules or guidelines usually agreed (though not legally obligatory) between media organisations and public organisations in order to make media organisations more accountable for what they publish.

In 1990, a black-and-white warning label reading "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" was introduced as a standard for affected records to follow, and was to be placed on the bottom right-hand section of a given product. By May 1992, approximately 225 records had been marked with the warning. 

Contrary to the label's purpose, the explicit content warning began to entice people who wanted to buy records that they may not necessarily have bought before based on the label that the album would have swearing, violent and sexual language or would otherwise not be suitable for minors to listen to. Subsequently, the label had the adverse effect of deterring wide audiences. 

Early edition of the
'Parental Advisory' label

Music Video theorists

Music genre theorists

Here are some theorists and their views on music genres that we learnt about in lesson today:

John Hartley
Argues that 'genres are agents of ideological closure- they limit the meaning-potential of a given text'. He basically aregues that genres act as a sort of straightjacket to an artist or a sort of tether to a genre's conventions.

Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress
Hodge and Kress say genres 'control the behaviour of producers of such texts, and the expectations of potential consumers'.

John Fiske
Fiske views genres as a reflection of the zeitgeist at the time. He says that genres 'embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in which they are popular'.

Rick Altman
Altman suggest that there's no such thing as a pure genre anymore. He states that genre is progressive in that it will always change. Generic conventions are very much a thing of the past. His theory suggests that audiences in general have become tired of the same strict make up and need more variety to keep them entertained.

One page pitch

One page pitch
Song: Santogold- Lights out
Location: Various locations around Chesterfield

Concept
Both performance and narrative. The performance will tie into the narrative, typical of the alternative music video genre. The video will feature an outdoor gig (a small one in a back garden, for obvious budget reasons) where a band will be playing Lights out, the audience will be the link between the performance and narrative. At the outdoor gig, there will be posters around saying “No vampires”. There will be vampires in the music video, who will act as a metaphor for social stigma or things that I believe some areas of the media try to make people wary or afraid of. Such as assuming teenagers (particularly males) are chaotic because of gang crimes. 

Narrative
During the first verse and chorus there will be an introduction to the performance side of the music video and to the concept of the shared fear and dislike of vampires that the public in the video have. 

The verse that follows the chorus will be introducing a group of vampires running around a quiet suburban neighbourhood causing mischief such as throwing stones at ‘No Vampires’ signs and attempting to drink the blood of household pets. The purpose of this will be to show the effect that hatred and fear has on the social groups that suffer from stigma: the group of vampires will be living up to the media’s representation of them. 

Toward the end of the video, the performance and concept merge together, when the vampires discover the outdoor gig and kill everyone there (comically), completing the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy cycle.

Concept ideas

Ideas for music video story

For my music video, I want to have elements of both a narrative and a performance. Which means I'll need a story and lip-syncing in the video. From the offset of the year I have been inspired by music video director Richard Ayoade and his black-comedy style videos, which often includes intertextual referencing to things such as horror films and genres. 

In my media lessons, I have been developing the narrative of a vampire who is disliked by people around them because they are a vampire: a creature which is typically associated with horror and is feared among the general public in fictional stories where they exist. 

Instead of the audience fearing the vampire, I want them to be a comical character, being overly nice and just trying to fit in. However at the end of the video I still want them to take an innocent life: I want to create an ambiguous ending whereby the audience are unsure whether the vampire has killed the person because it was their primal instinct, or whether the stigmatisation they face from people has driven them to fulfil what is expected of them by those who create and reinforce the stigma.

Intertextuality in music videos

Intertextuality in music videos

Intertextuality has always been popular within music videos, especially in such a way as to make the video comical or to pay homage to directors, actors and other figures of the media that the band/artist a fans of. I have been researching intertextuality and how its used both prominently and subtly in film and music, as I want to include intertextual referencing to various vampire films in my music video. Here are music videos that I like that use intertextual referencing:

Blur- To The End 

To The End has intertextuality posing as the narrative to the music video. It references a french film from the 60s called 'Lanee Dernier et Marienbad'. Although the whole music video to this Blur song is based on the obscure french feature, it is never explicitly stated and I found out about the film via the Youtube comments on this particular music video.

Nirvana- In Bloom

In Bloom is a music video that parodies performances featured on variety shows in the early 1960s, with Kurt Cobain dressed like Buddy Holly, this referencing is less direct and more general: its referencing no particular variety shows but simply old 1960s televised performances. As well as direct referencing in my music video I want to have more general references, such as acting out folklore about vampires like their sensitivity to light and absence of reflection. 

Song choice

The song I have chosen to make my final music video to is 'Lights out' by Santigold. I chose this song because as far as I am aware, it has no current music video accompaniment, which means that when brainstorming ideas for the video's concept I won't be swayed to try and mimic or recreate the original. As a personal fan of this song and the artist, I already have good knowledge of the song and have listened to it many times. 



I was particularly drawn to the lyrics of the song and upon researching the meaning I found no clear answer.

"Lights Out"

Lights out, shoot up the station
TV's dead, where's there to run?
Watch everybody come undone

Lights out, we'll make it easy, we'll make it fun
Won't let them see now, how they had won
Still I wait another round

Darling
Don't got to worry, you're locked in tight
Darling
Don't got to worry, turn out the light

Wiped out, no concentration
They got us basking in the storm
I watch it as it loses form

I doubt, they could see me; that's what I want
A casualty, but I am upfront
And I know what it's about

Chorus

I'm still here shakin' my head
The one you can't account for
I keep just one step ahead
There's no place to run 

One interpretation I found was that the song was about the public being in constant fear because the media distributes bad news and frightening events. It highlights that we rely heavily on the news and television to direct us in what to be scared about and what not to be. I liked this idea because I want my concept to involve media stigmatisation and well-established fear, but I wanted to counteract the fear that people express in the video with a comical theme which makes the audience not fear the characters at everyone in the video does. 

Genres- ALTERNATIVE

ALTERNATIVE

In researching music video genres in the hopes of gaining some idea of what type of style to go for in my music video, I have found myself being heavily influenced by that of the alternative genre. Though alternative music is a vast genres that many artists, albums and songs can fall under, i have found that in music videos to alternative music: whether its alternative punk of rock or indie, there seems to be some common themes shared. 
These themes include:

• Violence
• Satire 
• Absurd concepts (such as clowns as real people in Fluorescent Adolescent)
• Cuts between narrative and concept
• and intertextual references to films, eras and other music videos

Here are some of the alternative music videos I have seen which have interested or inspired me in some way:

1. Wolf Alice- You're a germ

I like the consistent intertextual referencing throughout this music video: the titles of the music video bears similarity to the Evil Dead and the location of the music video (a cabin in the woods) fits this film and other productions in the horror genre, like the Until Dawn game. 

2. Parquet courts- Dust




I liked this video by Parquet Courts as I thought that the atmosphere of the video was uncomfortable and strange. because of the amount of superimposition in the video, it's hard to concentrate on one thing in particular, and the dust monster that is barely able to be seen over the footage is strange and eery-looking.

3. Blur- The Universal




Blur's universal is a more obvious intertextual reference to the book and the film 'A Clockwork Orange', with mine-en-scene and concept following one of the scenes from the film where a woman sings Beethoven to a group of men. This also fits with my list of findings in alternative music videos by having the band play the droogs from the film, Damon Alburn of Blur being the main Character Alex.