Analysis Of Song

Inflowential-Changes

Good luck ya'll,

God bless you

Even if we don't keep in touch

I'm glad I met you                                                                                 

Good luck ya'll

God bless you

Even if things change

I won't forget you

God luck ya'll

God bless you

Even if we don't keep in touch

I'm glad I met you

God bless you

Even if things change

I won't forget you

This is the chorus of the song and in this song it starts the song off instead of being after a verse. Although the chorus does come after the verses in this song I still believe that this technique was very creative. The artist who is singing the chorus is singing about a girl that he met and he is trying to say that even if things change such as separation being caused, he will still be glad that he met her and that he'll never forget her.

Tab Ones Verse:

You never hear a song the same way more than once,

you might not feel the same today as last month,

cuz surroundings change & acquaintances fade,

some grow brighter so we turn another page,

to another chapter of love & laughter,

tears, pain, sun & rain but we have to

keep on pressin even though we're all stressin

with few answers, and millions of questions,

it's so strange how things rearrange

some people I know, man they don't act the same

some are graduating & they're goin away

& then some are just workin cuz they got bills to pay

man, each day's different, no matter how you're livin

regardless of intentions or your interests, it's a given

you can't dodge change cuz change is relentless & endless

This is the first verse of the song and 'Tab One' raps to it. In this verse, the rapper is trying to say that as time flies by, people change and this is shown when he raps 'you might not feel the same today as last month'. This shows that as the time changes, the 'surroundings' and 'acquaintances' change with it and he is trying to show that for some people the time going by results in a happier way but for the others it is 'tears, pain, sun & rain'. He is addressing this to girl as he is rapping that you must 'keep on pressin' even when everyone is still 'stressin'. This verse is also to show that you can't avoid change as it is 'relentless & endless'

Charlie verse:

Then I fell in love with you

Then I fell in love with you

Then I fell in love with you

Then I fell in love with you

Shari, don't get lost in Boston

And I will see you, I don't care how much its costing 

And by the way,

Congratulations on your graduation

Since you've left its like I had an amputation

And your the missing piece of the puzzle

My message was all bottled up

So I took off the muzzle 

Swallowed my pride, guzzled it down

The letter I wrote it

Found out, you're the reason I'm a poet, so I focused

My confessions on each rap session

Use the pen and try to teach myself a lesson but you're gone

I reach and touch you, over the phone

I can't feel you as much

I'm not near to you 

Look in my rearview mirror

Its filled with regret

Its just pitiful, I'm willing to bet

Shit I didn't do, could've lead to great heights

And if these thoughts that I'm thinking yo, they ain't right

I would rather you fight me

Not taking it lightly

Cause it might be, 

the best decision in my life

I never gave up 

Got my mind made up

I wasted time once

So tonight, I'm taking a flight 

And that's that

I believe the rapper Charlie is talking about a loved one in this verse called Shari. We hear that Shari has to another city away from Charlie and he vows that he plans on seeing Shari no matter what happens and that he doesn't care how money he has to spend on making that happen. He admits that he feels very sad after his loved one left as he raps that it felt like an 'amputation'. The main thing about this verse is that he is meaning to say that his loved one is the reason why he has become a rapper

Tab-One's last verse:

well I'm livin but I'm in prison of reminiscing

because these times get tougher as my life keeps twistin

& things change position like friends, home, & women

while i'm swimmin in a vision of a simpler time

a feelin I could never fully express in rhyme

even if I tried, guarantee there's not enough lines

that could illustrate thoughts I generate in my mind

like the sun never sets the same way more than once

you might not feel the same today as last month

cuz friends turn strange, some move away

some pass through it's hard to tell if they'll stay

in your memory but you know the ones that will

because their energy gave you a vibe so real

that it touched you, gripped you, equipped you with love

you know they got your back if push comes to shove

but as age gets added to the page of my book

people round my way don't look the same as they looked

different situations got communication shook

if you lose touch, forced to reel in your hook &

let em go like the breeze that blows 

cuz we're all really travelin on our own road

the company we keep just helps to bear the load

man, each days different, no matter how you're livin

regardless of intentions or your interests it's a given

you can't dodge change cuz change is relentless & endless

This is the last verse of the song and it returns to Tab One to rap again. It shows that he keeps reminiscing about 'friends, home & women' and it feels like he's in prison. He concludes the fact that people change as he says 'cuz friends turn strange, some move away' this shows that some of his past friends may have changed and that they repelled away from him. He even raps that people are independent in their own way everyone is 'travellin on our own road' this shows that he believes that even if time and people change, the people should stay independent and do their own thing. He raps up his last verse with the same line he ended it with in his first verse.

Target audience:

Age group: 15-25

Gender: Unisex, this is because the song is about changes and the song didn't at any point mean that it was referring to either a boy or a girl so it could be to any gender.

Interests: music, love, relationships, changes

Ethnicity: any

Location: worldwide

Music:

The music that is used is clearly set for rap as it doesn't contain guitars, special effect sounds as you would normally expect to hear in the music genres such as rock, pop. You do hear some parts using a drums and it's a good effect to add into it as it shows that the group is trying to put a variety of music tones into the song. The tone of the song pretty much stays the same throughout the whole song as they try to keep a fixed tone. This is because they same loop is used throughout.

Tempo:

The tempo of the song is relatively slower than normal rap songs which you wouldn't really expect to find in as rap songs normally contain fast paced rapping and quite fast music. The slow tempo goes with the feeling that the song is trying to show, as it is about quite a sad matter on how people and time changes, the music tempo is also quite slow to suggest that it is a slow process but it happens

This song goes quite against that convention as it tends to be quite a slow song. This is a good effect that the group has added as it shows that they have tried to be different to other artists and their music.

How I would communicate the song: 

I chose this song as I thought it had a perfect song with the lyrics being very well written to make sure they prove that they are going with the title of the song. As the song is about changes, I would make sure that in the music video, it communicates as showing things change such as time. As the song is also about relationships, I would like to show a relationship in the video and how it could be broken in terms of changes. It could use imagery in some parts such as when Tab One is reminiscing about times, friends, family and women. It would use illustrate styles such as when he is thinking about friends, family and women the video will show each of them appear at the same time as he is saying the lyrics.

Andrew Goodwin's Music Video Theory

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99 Dollar Music Videos

99 Dollar Music Videos

99 dollar music videos is an music institution that showcases music videos on their You Tube channel as they do not have a webiste that is accessible anymore. The You Tube channel advertises the videos that they believe are produced by the most promising up-and-coming film makers and good independant bands. The institution use the videos that are only made with a budget that is under 99 dollars.

The institution have their own ethos that they expect to recieve:

• They have to be made from 99 dollars or less
• They have to be shot and edited within only a few days
• Use a lot of creativity in the videos made

I recieved this information by watching the video that I have embedded above. I got the information that I needed from the 10th second till the 22nd second of the video, and in that time lapse, I saw the producer named Rob explaining that the videos that the artists submit must be under the budget of $99 and that they must be shot and edited in within a few days and this shows that they want people that use a lot of creativity in the work that they produce and this is because the mainstream institutions such as big labels use a lot of money to produce their videos as they use a budget that is pretty much in the millions and take a long period of time to edit and shoot the videos. This shows that they believe that a lot of creativity is more important than all of that as a creative mind can produce a good video that doesn't need a lot of money to have been produced and that a good effort can edit and shoot a video in a quick amount of time.


The genre that mostly appears on their channel is rock  and indie music and I have placed an example of one below.

This is an excellent video that I have found on their channel. I think it is really well created as the whole video is like a time lapse as it goes through roads and meets many different objects on it's journey. It is hard to believe that it was shot and edited in a days time because it was very creative and looks like a lot of time and effort had gone into the process.
As I have read that they only use videos for independent artists it shows that they don't use artists that are signed to any labels, they only use artists that are independent as in by themselves and produce all of the work and fund for all of it by themselves. If it was a band, the whole band would contribute and pay for different aspects separately.

At the 36th second of this video you can hear the man saying that the 99 Dollar music video institution does not have a specific style of video that they would like, as long as the artists follow the rules they can do whatever they want to.

This image is a screenshot that I have took from the same video above. The reason that I have captured this screenshot is because at the very same time that writing piece 'Must be collaborative' came up on the screen, the man said 'it must be collaborative between the band and the film maker' this is because the institution wants the band and the film maker to both have a collaborative contribution as they want both of them to meet together and chose 'what resources' they could use.

The institution will pay for the funding and the video making aspects are the artists responsibility as it must all come under $99.

They have made comments accessible on their videos so that the audience can participate by giving their own views and thoughts on the videos that they have just seen.

The feedback that they receive is generally positive and this is proven by the screenshot that I have provided on the left hand side

The institution also encourage the audience to check out their Twitter page and see the latest news and also participate by tweeting questions and thoughts.







It is possible to a professional quality music video for ninety nine dollars, this video below proves this.


This video is excellently made and for ninety nine dollars you can surely say that they produced a great job. The video is produced in just one room I believe and it is in a square room and what they have used their space very efficiently as they used many instruments and objects

Eamil sent to the unsigned artist

Style and Conventions of Music Videos

Styles

In this task I will show and explain examples of style and conventions of Music Videos. To do this I will find videos which I think are the perfect match to each subject I will use which is:

• Performance, Concert
• Narrative
• Interpretative
• Impressionist
• Surrealism/Abstract
• Animation
• Intertexuality
• Homage/Pastiche
• Parody

Performance, Concert:

A performance/concert music video is when there is a live performance taking place in the music video. This tends to be when it shows the artist performing a song to a live audience that is present at the scene. The example I have used is a rock song called 'Chop Suey' and it is a very famous rock song and very well known. The reason that I have used this music video is because it shows a live performance going on as the musicians are performing their song and there is a big amount of audience members all around the stage listening and enjoying the music. We can also see this in the video thumbnail I have provided above, it shows a man singing with a microphone in his hand and it shows a majority of audience members behind him enjoying the music that he is performing. I believe that the institution use this style to add excitement to the viewers feelings as they see the performance taking place in the video it makes them seem as if they are one of the audience members in the video as it adds that sense of reality. I think that this would be quite a cool and funky style to use in my music video as it adds a lot of enjoyment as it makes the viewer think that they are live at the concert.


Narrative:



A narrative music video is where it shows the video matching the storyline and video. This style makes the audience feel more emotion towards the video as they can relate to the video. The video that I have used is called 'The Man Who Can't Be Moved' by 'The Script'. It is about a man who has been separated from his girlfriend/wife and he has got to the stage of depression where he has to sit on the pavement of a road for a long period of time waiting for his love to come back to him. 

As we see in this picture I have provided, there is a man sitting on the corner of a road with a sleeping bag to his side and he is looking very depressed. This is at the ending of the song and the lyrics relate to the video as he is saying 'gonna camp in my sleeping bag, I'm not gonna move'. This style gives the audience more of an emotional feel to the song as the lyrics match the video and if it was a sad song as this one is, the audience would see the characters looking depressed as in the picture I have provided and they would feel some impact to this as well as they may get emotional and that is the reason why the institutions use this style. 
This style is very good to use in music videos as it adds a lot of meaning into the video as it makes the viewer become more involved. This would be a good convention to add in my music video as it is very interesting and if I can think of a good narrative to make the video about.

Parody:



A parody is usually a spoof of something original such as a film or another music video. Spoofs normally tend to either mock or simply copy an original piece of work and this is done to end up with a humorous result that the audience would enjoy to watch and parodies have become very famous now. The example that I have chosen is by a group of people names 'The Lonely Island' and it is a video named 'Jack Sparrow'. In this video, the group of people have basically made a parody focussing on the film called 'The Pirates Of The Caribbean' and the video has made many references to this film in the video they have created.

As we see in this image I have provided on the left hand side, there is a reference made as the group member is pretending to be 'Captain Jack Sparrow' from the film. The singer also says 'Captain Jack...Johnny Depp' who is the actor that plays the role of 'Jack' and this is also a reference.



We hear Michael Bolton say in the video 'right let me tie this is with another film' and that's exactly what they do.

As we see in the picture I have provided to the right hand side there is an image of the singer in the video pretending to be Tony Montana from the film 'Scarface' and he is wearing very similar clothes as he is imitating the film and he is saying 'This is the tale...of Tony Montana'

The institution use this style to give a humorous impact on the audience watching it. It is for entertainment purposes and to try and trend by getting it famous.
This is a good style however I wouldn't really want to add it into my music video as it will most likely be on a more serious matter.
Homage:

 

A homage video is basically an imitation or an acknowledgment of something from the past, it could either be a story, or a film or even another music video. As it is a imitation, it means that it duplicates another media text. A homage video may be made to add a newer feel to a media reference. The example that I have chosen is by an extremely famous rapper named '2Pac' and the song is named 'Ghetto Gospel'. This video is a homage video because it is basically a tribute to the rapper 2Pacs life as it shows moments and feelings that this man had during his time alive. This video was created to show the audience moments re-created from this rappers life as it shows an actor playing the role of 2Pac and recreating a lot of moments that may or may not have occurred in Pac's life. We see in the thumbnail that they are recreating a time when he was playing with his child.

We see in the first 30 seconds of the video that they have recreated the time after 2Pac got shot.
In the picture I have provided above it shows a scene from the video where there are people gathered around looking down at the floor to find out that it is the rapper 2Pac. The video has also displayed a time at the bottom right hand side and the time is '10:04' which was roughly the time that he got shot.

This all shows that the institution have made a song and video which is acknowledging 2Pacs death and they have made this video as a tribute to him and what he has done for music. This would have an impact on the audience as it could inform them of what Pacs life was like and what kind of things he had to endure during his time alive.


Interpretive:



An interpretive video is a video where lyrics link with what is being shown in the video. The video would contain aspects of imagery that relate the video to the lyrics. The video also uses lyrics to create the style and plot of the video. The video that I have used is called 'Firework' by the artist called 'Katy Perry'. This is an interpretive video because most of the storyline is in tact with the video. 

She starts of the video coming to a balcony and singing some lyrics, then she says 'Do you ever feel already buried deep? six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing' and at that point when she is saying those lyrics, it shows the boy in the screenshot above in a hospital looking very depressed. This is interpretive because the lyrics go with the scenes of the video as the she her quote is meaning if you feel dead and the boy looking depressed shows that he may be feeling that.

At this point she is in the chorus of the song when she sings 'Just own the night like the 4th of July' as there are fireworks beginning to come out of her chest.

Then in the image above we see that as she is saying those lyrics, this child comes to his window to see the fireworks that she is letting off as she is saying 'baby your a firework' as she is trying to inspire him. Then in the image on the right it shows that the child has left his hospital room and come outside because her lyrics gave him inspiration to show who he is because before he was just ashamed to show that he didn't have any hair but her lyrics gave him inspiration to do so.

The institution use this style to let the audience feel the emotions in a more effective way and by adding a video that goes with the lyrics is very good as it lets the audience see the feelings and emotions as the words are being said and this video used that perfectly.

Impressionist:



An impressionist video is a video where the imagery matches the mood and the pace of the song. The lyrics do not actually necessarily have to match with the video, what should match is the tone and the pace of the song and that should go with the video. The video I have used is 'Cry Me A River' by Justin Timberlake. I chose this video because the imagery in the video really does tend to go with the songs tone. The song is quite slow and that's why pretty much all of the scenes are quite dark and gloomy.

Rain is used quite a lot in this video to set the tone and emotions, this is because when it rains most people tend to feel depressed and sad as they can't really go out and do most of the activities that they would be able to do when its not raining such as sunny weather, and this is where the institution have tried to go with this video to set quite a depressed and gloomy feel for the audience to endure.
Surrealism:

Surrealism videos are music videos that feature an element of surprise to the viewer. As sometimes the lyrics and the video may not match, they are still put together to create an aspect called juxtaposition. The video that I have chosen is called 'Sweetest Kill' and it falls into the surrealism category because you really do not expect what is about to happen as the video gives you an element of surprise

As we see in this screenshot, all is going well as she is having fun with the male person with her and she is kissing him.

Then all of a sudden the man drops onto the floor as he may have been dosed with something. This is when the element of surprise starts, instead of getting upset or calling for help, the woman simply lays down a sheet on the floor giving the viewer that element of surprise thinking what she'll do next.

Next we see that she just sits down on a chair staring at the fresh corpse that lays right in front of her and this adds to the surrealism as the viewer would be shocked to see how her reaction is so calm and how she doesn't care about what has just happened.

Further on we visualise that she begins the process of completely destroying the man's body as she gets an axe and a saw and cuts all the pieces of his body up and this would really shock the viewer as it is a very shocking sight to see.

Lastly we see that she begins to lay down on some mud, but it is not just mud, the man's body pieces are in that mud. 

This is really shocking and surprising to see as this video didn't need to use animation to create surrealism, it created surrealism with the use of peoples minds and creativity and how shocking some peoples minds could be and the institution showed that perfectly in this video.
Surrealism is a very good thing to use in a music video as it makes the viewer get more into it as it makes the think, I would like to use this in my music video if I could.
Animation:



Animated music videos are usually drawings and special effects put together in one aspect to illustrate the storyline of the music video. The example I have used is a song called 'Go with the flow' by 'Queen of the stone age'. I used this video because it used good animated special effects and the storyline goes with some of the animations.

The song is about 'symbolizing intercourse' and this is evident when we see an animated girl dancing with a minimal amount of clothes on and the video has used good animations to show this.

The institutions use animation to add a more creative aspect to videos as using animations in music videos has become quite rare and to do this is shows that they want to add a new feel to the music industry. It also may excite the viewers as animations tend to look quite cool.


Intertextuality:

Intertextuality is a style where one media text references another media text such as a music video could reference a film. The example I have used is a song by 'Slipknot' called 'Spit it out' and this music video consistently uses references from one of the most famous horror films called 'The Shining'

All of these images are from the music video and they all reference separate scenes from the Shining film. I don't believe that this music video was a parody however they did refer to a lot of the scenes from the film but not necessarily as a joke.

The institution may use this effect to make the viewer sort of reminisce different kind of aspects from different media texts.

Music Video Case Study

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Techniques

Music Video Techniques:

In this task I will find good and bad techniques in music videos of:

• Large number of cuts
• Special effects
• Cutting to the beat
• Varied camera language
• Lip-synching
• Green Screen

Large number of cuts:

This video by Kanye West, Rhianna and Kid Cudi called All of the lights a very large amount of cuts in the video. The cuts used tend to go very fast and they are very quick throughout the whole song as there are many cuts used. By using a a lot of cuts it maintains the quick pace of the song. The technique was very successful as it keeps the audience engaged and focused on what's happening as there is a lot to see in the video. This video must give the viewer a lot of enjoyment as there is a lot of colour used and the cuts engage the viewer a lot.



This music video has a very low amount of cuts in it. Having a low amount of cuts in a video is not really a good aspect as it tends to look boring to the viewer. This video in particular is uses low cuts and low amount of cuts are normally used on slower paced songs and this one is quite slow and it would come across to the viewer as very boring to see as they would not be fully engaged in it.


Special effects:



This music video by Katy Perry is an example to use for the use of special effects as this video uses a ton of special effects and this adds a lot of excitement as it looks eye catching to the viewers. In the video we see that they are being interpreted as extra terrestrial and they are out of space and the special effects show this as in the backgrounds it looks as if there are stars, planets and galaxies behind them. This video represents the artist as very elegant as they are in a production that is much different to normal music videos as they have used a lot of special effects and it has come out in a positive way.




This video called A Thousand Miles is a good example for a video that doesn't use any special effects and this is not a good aspect, special effects add entertainment to the video and without them the videos tend to look boring. The video simply contains a woman singing the whole time on her piano and for the directors idea of adding entertainment they have placed the piano in different locations in some points however this does still not look good.


Cutting to the beat:




This video is a great example of cutting to the beat, it is a song by Keith Urban. The video contains many cuts throughout however the most important aspect is that the cuts mostly cut to the beat of the music. This is good as adds tempo to the video and its enjoyable to watch as every time the main beats come, the video changes with it.


This video by J Cole is a bad example of cutting to the beat as pretty much none of the scenes cut with the music. I can see that the directors and producers have tried to make an attempt to match the cuts with the beats but it just hasn't worked out right.


Varied camera angles:





This video by Chris Brown called Don't wake me up uses a significant amount of camera language. In this video you can see that there are many long shots and close ups used. There is a lot of camera movement used throughout the whole video as the camera pretty much never stays still and this is a good aspect as it shows that they has been a lot of work into the production to produce something which is enjoyable for the audience.

This video by Ellie Goulding is a bad example of camera language as there is pretty much no creativity used throughout the whole video, the majority is pretty much just a close up on the artists face and this would result in a pretty much boring music video with not really any entertainment for the viewers to get. By seeing this you may also connote that the artist tends to do this kind of slow music.

Green screen:

This video by La Roux is a good example of green screen.In the video we see that there is a lot of green screen used throughout the majority of the video and the good aspect is that the green screen is used well as it does not look out of place and it goes right with the set used. Green screen is used to add enjoyment into the video and this music video contains a lot of good green screen which shows that it adds enjoyment to the audiences viewing.



This video above is a good example of a music video that uses green screen badly. This is because the music video has just made the background look it is in space as there are stars in a black surrounding. It is not creative at all as there is no movement in the background, it simply stays still throughout the whole video. This video will most likely bore the audience as it lacks a lot of imagination and creativity.

Lip Synching:



This video by Michael Jackson displays bad lip synching. This is because although he says the right lyrics that are meant to be in the song, the timing of of when he sings is off on a numorous amount of times such as in 2:44 when the camera zooms out of him, his lip synching of the lyrics is not matching what the audience hears from the song. Lip synching is used so that it makes the artist look like they are singing into the microphone as they are shooting the video and as they are dancing. The bad lip synching in this video would mean that the producers may not have put in enough time into watching the video again and again after production and that is bad as the viewers may have found it not as enjoyable to watch.




This is a good video for good lip synching as all of the lyrics heard are on time with the artists lip movements. This makes an enjoying video for the viewers.