We’ve talked a lot about rhythm in this course, because obviously a hugely important part of music video is being able to visually represent the beat of a song. Often, this is done through rapid editing. This makes it all the more astonishing when we see a one-take music video. Notoriously hard to film, the one-take can nonetheless produce a stunning effect.

I was inspired to write this post after re-watching the hugely popular video clip for the Black Keys’ Lonely Boy.

Internet legend says this music video was planned out as something entirely different with a regular budget and editing in mind, but when the director saw this extra dancing behind the scenes, he decided it would be perfect for the video. This is perhaps one of the most well-known one-take music videos, but of course there are some other favourites:

1. Taylor Swift’s We are Never Ever Getting Back Together

I’m guessing from the prop and costume changes that there’s a little bit of cheating going on here, but I think Taytay (TayTay? Tay-tay?) can be forgiven. The elaborate set and crazy extras give the whole video a playful theme that suits the way Swift kind of mocks herself in the song itself.

2. Lorde’s Tennis Court

Much like the Lonely Boy video, this one-take works because the central character it focuses on is so engaging. Where the Black Keys’ dancing man was comical and endearing, Lorde brings an intensely raw and emotional performance to this video that’s so mesmerising it doesn’t even matter that she’s singing very few of the words. This is aided by clever lighting and cinematography but also the beautiful and haunting costuming of Lorde from her winding braid to her mulberry lipstick.

3. The Spice Girls’ Wannabe

This for me would have to be an example of where one-take has really failed. I mean, I’m not the biggest Spice Girls fan to start off with but I really feel like this video has nothing going for it but the fact that it is a one-take (which might not even be the case if you believe some internet sources claiming it’s actually clever editing). The video simply shows the girls running around a hotel room, which without any edits to me gets boring very quickly, and there are some issues regarding the syncing of the dancing and singing to the track (Mel B, I’m looking at you).

4. OK Go’s Here it Goes Again

Probably the most famous one-take music video of all time, this video deserves all the kudos it gets. The skill in choreographing this and then the rehearsal required to get it right in one go must have been incredible and it’s really fun to watch. The video’s also iconic not just because of its one-take nature but because of its place as one of the world’s earliest viral sensations. Although the video now on YouTube was uploaded in 2009, it was originally posted in 2005, at the very dawn of shareable online video.

PS. Cheers to this Mental Floss article by Rudie Obias for pointing out some of these videos.

Hehe I couldn’t resist.

This week, famous Russian activist artists Pussy Riot released their latest music video. Named Chaika after Russia’s prosecutor general, the song takes aim at corruption in the country’s government. While any video clip attached to this song would convey the strong message of the lyrics, the imagery of Pussy Riot’s video emphasises these themes through symbols such as the band’s police costumes and the appearance of a golden loaf, an icon during Soviet times of grandeur and gratuitous wealth.

Pussy Riot are famous for using the music and music video mediums to convey political messages, but they aren’t the first or only artists to do so. Below are a few examples of famous music videos that convey political messages.

2. Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon

John Lennon was famous for his songs that carried messages of peace and harmony, and Give Peace a Chance is a fine example. This accompanying video was released in 1969 and is interesting in that it was produced in a time when mainstream music videos tended to be solely shots of the artists performing in a studio setting. So the choice to film Lennon’s performance in a much more informal environment and intercut it with footage of his and Yoko Ono’s famous bed-in reinforces the song’s anti-authoritarian sentiment and cry for global brotherhood.

2. By the Time I get to Arizona by Public Enemy

Public Enemy’s most famous political song is Fight the Power but for a look at their use of music video to be political it’s more interesting to look at this clip for By the Time I get to Arizona. The retro costumes, picketing and use of black and white make clear allusions to the American Civil Rights movement, which is linked to the present day (or at least the era of the song itself, circa 1991) through the shots of the artists themselves.

3. Same Love by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

This song is pretty explicit in its message – that same-sex relationships are as real and worthy of respect as any other – but the video builds a really beautiful narrative to support the song’s sweet and humble tone. The song has more of a moral message than a political one, but if you were in any doubt regarding the video’s purpose you need only skip to the closing credits which read: ‘Same Love – SUPPORT MARRIAGE EQUALITY, VOTE YES ON REF 74’

4. Dear Mr President by Pink

There’s not really a more explicitly political song I can think of than Pink’s Dear Mr President, addressed directly to George Bush Jr who appears at several points in the video. While the official video on Pink’s Vevo for this song is actually a recording of a live performance, we see projected images in the background of Bush, his family, and many representations of the issues that Pink discusses in the song.

I’m on holidays this week – woohoo! I know, it’s only just gone Christmas but my friends and I were determined to keep up our tradition of an annual getaway and it seemed like this was the only time we were all free.

We’re going down to Lakes Entrance, to the same house we’ve stayed in before, and I’m looking forward to a week of nothing but friends, laughs and long, lazy sleep-ins.

Unfortunately for us though, it looks like the weather’s not quite going to warm up enough for us to make the most of the beautiful beaches down Gippsland way. Oh I’m sure I’ll take my bathers and we’ll get down there eventually, but at the moment it’s looking a little too chilly for comfort.

It made me think though – following on from my theme last week of locations, the beach is a pretty popular setting not just in music video but on screen more generally. Which makes sense – it’s pretty, it’s natural, it’s powerful, it can convey so many meanings. So I thought I’d have a look at a few very different uses of the seaside in music video.

1. California Girls by The Beach Boys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcrbDYe4qL4

I have to say, when I put California Girls into YouTube I was looking for a rather different song, but when I saw this I knew I had to include it. Rohan always jokes that he’s an old man because he listens to Neil Diamond; well I must be ancient at heart because I do have a real soft spot for The Beach Boys’ cheesy, upbeat, clean-as-a-whistle 60s sound. I realised I haven’t spoken too much about older music videos so far, and while this is mostly a fan compilation it does have some brilliant studio footage in the middle of The Beach Boys singing at, well, the beach (or a decent imitation of it). This set is a classic example of how the beach often features in music video – the ultimate holiday setting for good times, summer, friends and family.

2. Yellow by Coldplay

From the happy to the, well . . .  I mean it’s not sad but it’s Coldplay so it’s not happy is it? Here, we see the beach less as a representation of joy and excitement but instead as a symbol of great emotional power. The darkness of the video along with the stark desolation of the beach as Chris Martin walks down it alone combines the natural beauty of the sea with a sense of awe and calmness that supports the song’s mellow but heartfelt tone.

3. Drunk in Love by Beyonce

It was only in my last post that I was talking about this video, and I think I’ve even mentioned it before then, but hey, what kind of music-related course would this be if Queen Bey didn’t show up a couple of times? If the first video shows the beach as the scene of good times and the second uses it to symbolise emotional power, I think I might place this video somewhere in the middle. This song is very heady – it kind of seems drunk itself, and here the beach both represents the excitement and temptation of which Bey sings and the almost overwrought tone of the song.

There was a particularly interesting report in The Age this week that caught my eye. A British study recently undertaken by the University of Nottingham analysed several music videos of songs from the British top 40 chart for references to alcohol and tobacco. This was done simultaneously with some YouGov polling of young people to see how many times people of certain age brackets had actually seen the videos.

Research author Dr Jo Cranwell analysed the videos according the to presence of alcohol or tobacco ‘impressions’, including both verbal and visual references. She estimated that based on the responses of those studied the 32 videos analysed were responsible for 1,006 million impressions of alcohol and 203 million of tobacco. The top offenders (bearing in mind that the study was conducted during 2013 and 2014) were Jason Derulo’s Trumpets and Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines for smoking references and Beyonce’s Drunk in Love and Pitbull and Kesha’s Timber for alcohol.

The article that I was reading online in The Sydney Morning Herald asserted that “it was well known that adolescents who were exposed to alcohol and tobacco were more likely to consume the drugs themselves.” Which begs the question, should we be regulating music video? Although film and TV in Australia have ratings that extend beyond recommendations and warnings to actual limitations on when certain things can be broadcast, we have no such system for music videos. Channel Ten’s music video program The Loop airs at 9am on Saturdays alongside children’s cartoons, and yet shows themes of sexuality, drug-taking, drinking, and other adult concepts that would not be permitted in other shows at that hour. Often there are TV edits made to music videos, but these usually come from the TV station or program rather than any regulatory body.

An interesting case in point comes from the UK, where this study was conducted. Just last year after a successful pilot program, the UK government introduced regulation to classify online music videos in the way that TV and films are rated. Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music must now send videos to the British Board of Film Classification before publication to YouTube or Vevo. I have to say, I’ll be interested to see how the UK government goes about policing this tricky online space, but I guess only time will tell.

Of course, this all relies on the argument that music videos do actually influence the behaviour of young people, which is a contentious topic in and of itself. I remember watching Michael Moore’s film Bowling for Columbine in high school and seeing the debate surrounding the impact of Marilyn Manson’s music videos on youth violence. It’s an interesting discussion and I’ll be fascinated to see if this report has any impact on music video regulation in Australia.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/cigarettes-and-alcohol-in-music-videos-a-health-hazard-for-teens-bmj-study-20160118-gm8moq.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35311337

So exciting news – this week two friends and I secured a lease to our first ever home. We’re moving out!

Ok, ok, this has nothing to do with music video but I was so excited I wanted to shoehorn it in. A thought that came to mind was Rohan telling us about all the videos he managed to film in his lounge room through creative use of lighting, sets and camera angles. One that had us all really shocked was Swagger by Ayawatamaya:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg7b8ICs8sE

This video looks like it’s been filmed on a stage or in a studio, but Rohan said it was all done in his lounge room. Inspired by this creativity and my own new space to explore, I began to think about the importance of location in music video and thought I’d take a look at some more prominent music video settings.

1. Blank Space by Taylor Swift

Whether you’re a fan of it or not, it’s hard to deny that this is an astonishingly pretty video, not just in terms of the cinematography and lighting but in terms of the settings, costumes and props. The whole song is a bit of a self-parody on Taylor Swift’s part, so it’s pretty appropriate that she used a luxurious mansion as the setting and home for her larger-than-life protagonist. The real life Winfield Mansion in New York is worth USD$19 million.

2. Come Into my World by Kylie Minogue

We watched this video in class the other day as part of our focus on French director Michel Gondry. The video, which features multiple Kylies, was pretty revolutionary at the time and the buzzing activity of the video comes from all the extras scurrying about in the background at the intersection of Rue du Point du Jour and Rue de Solférino in Paris.

3. Telephone by Lady Gaga and Beyonce

I’ve always had pretty serious problems with this video, but there’s no denying that it has a vibrant art-pop tone that really catches your eye and draws you in. Again, this comes from pretty extensive set-dressing, but a big contribution comes from the setting of the retro diner that Gaga and Beyonce stop at. Unfortunately for us tourists but perhaps unsurprisingly, this is not a real diner but a movie set. About an hour out of Los Angeles, the Four Aces diner that seems to be in the middle of nowhere has supposedly hosted such celebrity guests as Brad Pitt, John Travolta, Jim Carrey and Jennifer Lopez.

(Shout out to Lewis Corner at Digital Spy whose article provided a lot of the information for this post: http://www.digitalspy.com/music/feature/a663126/9-awesome-pop-videos-surprising-real-life-locations-from-madonnas-like-a-prayer-to-the-spice-girls-wannabe/)

Today we got the chance to meet recording artist and composer Georgia Fields. She is a long-term collaborator of Rohan’s, having composed music for his documentaries and having been the artist behind several (after much debate the pair decided it was nine) of his music videos. Rohan has showed us a few of them, and this one has a really cool look:

Georgia came in today because it was time for us to present our pitches for our group music videos to the class. Rohan decided it would be a good idea for us to get some feedback from an actual recording artist, who understands what it is like to perform in a music video and so could provide feedback from that perspective, as well as being a fresh set of eyes to examine our concepts.

It was a really good idea. Georgia gave some great, practical advice (I can believe that she’s just become a mum!), such as, “where is the nearest toilet?” And, “if it’s a new song will they know the lyrics perfectly?” Her points were really valuable, and it was kind of her to come in. We’re really lucky to have her coming in again next Thursday to do a live set, which we’ll be using to practice shooting music live. Unforunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to come in next week, which is a shame not just because I’ll miss out on the technical learning but also because I’ll miss out on seeing Georgia live!

It was also great to be able to see what the other groups are doing. It sounds like we’ve got some great clips coming up (Rohan even joked that he was worried Georgia would fire him in place of us!).

We started with group ‘Hawaii 5-0’ (in honour of them being the only five-person group), whose song ‘Ten Different Names’ by the band Pockets had a groovy Wild West cowboy sort of feel. The band’s artwork for the song was each of their heads in silhouette inside one another (if that makes sense), and the group was using that design as a template for incorporating some awesome designs that they’d created from food dyes and paints.

Group two was Elle and Jac, who confused us all into thinking they had extremely good contacts with their powerpoint title ‘Fortunes – Justin Beiber’ (Fortunes was the artist). Like us, they’re going for a narrative – that of the artist planning a party. But to avoid the trap of cliched teen party scenes, they’re ending with the plot twist that there is actually no-one at the party.

The third group played a hardcore rock song aptly titled ‘Anxious’, and are matching the song’s ominous sound with some witches dancing in a forrest, but are mixing it up with some cool projection work in the studio.

Finally,our fourth group was also using projectors, projecting images onto their artist to portray the inner emotional turmoil described in the song. Their clever interpration of the lyrics into visual metaphors should be fun to watch, along with their scenes graphically added to the artist’s sunglasses.

It’s 12.25 on a Tuesday, and rather than spending my uni lunch break, you know, actually having lunch, I’m sitting here writing this blog post up on level four of building 57. Today, The Assenders, the RMITV show that I’m a producer (and also an actor, and a sound operator, and a first assistant director . . .) is filming its final shoot. Hurrah! My role is a producer is not yet over, as post-production still has a ways to go, but it’s a momentous occasion nonetheless.

There’s not really a way for me to link this to music video, but I feel like this show has given me a lot of experience and training for my career in the media industry more generally so I wanted to mark the occasion. I’ve really enjoyed producing on The Assenders; I like the combination of creativity with my natural tendency to be organised and, well, boss people around. I’ve also really enjoyed meeting new people – I’m working with a great bunch of people on the production team who I now, after dinners, nights out and asking them to be sneaky references on an application, regard as friends.

I’ve been fortunate enough to both crew and be a producer on this show, and I feel like I’ve learnt a lot of new skills. I’ve had a chance to do some scripting, something I never thought I’d get to do but have always dreamt of, and I’m even due to appear on screen today. In all honesty, I think RMITV has been much more relevant to my career training than anything I’ve done in class. While it’s valuable to be able to analyse media products, my practical training at RMITV in equipment, software and production procedures is something I can put on my resume to distinguish myself from other graduates and make myself valuable to an employer. Certainly, the skills that I use in my job at the moment (editing of internal educational videos) all come from RMITV. Just the other day, my manager asked me to make up some production administration documents based on the stuff we’ve been using at RMITV.

In short, I’ve loved it. So I’ll definitely be signing up for another RMITV show (probably with some of the people I’m working with now). But for the time being, The Assenders is still going strong. Here we are in action:

Our group’s music video project for Aivi’s Hey You There is coming along swimmingly. We’re pretty close to being ready to film , as we’ve got a really clear idea of the tone and narrative we’re trying to create. This is the treatment I wrote today:

The clip opens with our protagonist, ABBY, sitting on a bench in a large lawned space by a lake. She is dressed in feminine, retro-style clothing and there is warm afternoon sunlight. She’s absent-mindedly strumming on a ukelele when something catches her eye. On a path nearby, a man with Elvis-like hair walks along carrying a large bunch of helium balloons. As Abby watches, he happily gives the balloons out to passers-by. At this point, she begins singing as she remains seated and plays the ukelele.

After a few lines, Elvis Hair disappears. Abby (still singing) cranes her neck looking for him, and stands up to wander around and look for him further. She can’t spot him, but near the path he was walking down she sees someone holding one of his balloons. She asks the person where Elvis Hair might have gone. The person points, and follows Abby, and we see the two looking about for him.

We see the two arrive at a new location, still searching for Elvis Hair, and they see a young couple with balloons. Excitedly, they approach, and once again the balloon-holders join the search, and they look around for Elvis Hair.

In a third location, we see a third person with a balloon, with headphones in. The existing searchers approach, and this person is more reluctant. However, after some persuading from the others, he too joins the search.

The final people with Elvis Hair balloons are an older couple, enjoying a romantic date. They are very willing to join Abby’s search as she approaches.

Here we have a few humourous b-roll shots of the group’s search, such as them puzzling over a map, looking under benches and up trees.

In the final scene, Abby sees the bunch of balloons over a hedge or tree, and the group eagerly runs to see Elvis Hair. Abby is at first too shy to approach, but the group encourages her, almost physically pushing her towards him.

She taps Elvis Hair on the shoulder and he turns so they face each other. They introduce themselves, and he offers her a balloon. In our final shot the two walk off into the distance and we pan up to a shot of the balloon.

Being a technological hermit, I normally try not to jump on mourning bandwagons when a celebrity passes away. Don’t get me wrong; I definitely think you can be genuinely sad about the death of a person you haven’t met, especially musicians who have such strong emotional influences on us. But  I also think that we have a tendency in the age of social media to become a part of what I think I’ll call ‘herd grief’: finding ourselves caught up in a public outpouring of emotion without realising that it’s not actually an emotion we share ourselves.

So normally, the death of David Bowie would not draw a response from me. I was not a particular fan, so while I obviously see that a man’s untimely death from illness is a tragedy, I wouldn’t say that I am exactly grieving. Again, I do believe that some people expressing their grief are truly sad; there’s no doubting the influence of Bowie’s music and artistry and I’m sure people did genuinely feel he made a significant impact on their lives. So they are rightfully grieving. I am not, and I think that to pretend that I am – to jump on the Bowie bandwagon only now that he’s dead – would be an insult to the memory of a man who had a real effect on the music industry and to his audience.

However, now that I’m in a music video course, I feel that I couldn’t let the passing of a man who was a real pioneer in the area of music video go unacknowledged. As I have said, while I’m not particularly a Bowie fan myself, as a student of media but also just a music listener like everyone else I can see the importance of what he did as an artist and the effect it had on both the music and music video industries.

For example, the NGV recently held an exhibition that showcased some of Bowie’s most famous and experimental outifts, and it’s not just your Average Joe who gets his cossies in the NGV. Costumes were just one element that Bowie used to create a brand new aesthetic that extend to his music videos, and that didn’t just look trendy but really pushed boundaries, particularly in his exploration of the ‘androgynous look’ that I think is still relevant today.

He released his last album on his 69^th birthday – just three days ago, and considering his 18-month battle with cancer, there’s little doubt he would have seen it himself as a final farewell. Today in class we watched his last music video, Lazarus. It’s a rich music video in any sense, but knowing what we know now it’s particularly moving and insightful.

I was pretty keen to get onto this week’s reading, as it was all about modern feminism, and the way that translates into representations of women in popular music videos. To be honest, it was a bit dense and theoretical for me, but a few cultural touchstones helped me get a few key points out of it. For example, the first part of the reading focused on Pink’s Stupid Girls.

Believe it or not, V-Hits had shown this video as part of their ‘Flashback Friday’ segment just a few days before I did the reading, so it was fresh in my mind (I take back all my criticism of being subjected to V-Hits at the gym). While I’m not a huge Pink fan, I’ve always admired her strong personality and musical prowess, and like most people (I suspect), I’ve always seen the video for Stupid Girls to be one of her most powerful feminist statements. The video’s criticism of plastic surgery, spray tans and all things fake seems to be an encouragement for girls to shake off society’s beauty expectations for more authentic, strong personalities.

However, the reading made a very interesting point that questioned whether the video was feminist at all. Because while Pink’s video on the one hand encourages girls to value themselves and their true appearances, it also ruthlessly criticises women who choose the lifestyle of beauty regimens and cosmetic surgery. Can the video still be considered feminist if it attacks women? Indeed, can a video entitled Stupid Girls be anything other than misogynist?

Maybe I’m getting a little carried away, but this sort of duality that the reading highlights in representations of women in music videos particularly struck a chord with me, as it is something I have long considered with regards to depictions of female sexuality.

When it comes to music videos, sex is never very far away. And I’m okay with that. I like to think I’m not a prude, and with music being an ultimately emotional art form, it’s to be expected that there’s going to be music (and therefore music videos) about sex. But of course, that doesn’t mean that all depictions of sexuality in music videos are completely benign. As a feminist I often see women in music videos in positions that seem to me to be demeaning – Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines comes to mind as a recent example of a video that raised ire.

However, having acknowledged the role of sex in the music video industry, do I have a right to tell these women not to be sexual? If memory serves me correctly, after Blurred Lines was released one of the models in it made a Facebook post saying how pleased she was to be part of the project, which no doubt boosted her career considerably. As a feminist, do I not have to respect these women’s choices in being a part of this project?

In the case of Blurred Lines, I still err on the side of ‘they’re being objectified by men and that’s not okay’, but in other cases, well – the lines are more blurred. The example that comes to mind for me is Miley Cyrus, about whom I have kind of had an about-face. I used to see her revealing outfits, sex references and whacky stunts as trashy; however, as a feminist it drives me mad that men can be ‘players’ where women are ‘sluts’, so I had to ask myself: did I have a right to judge Miley for her sexuality? In fact, some of her more recent comments regarding her sexuality and her typically controversial but I think extraordinarily brave move to ditch her underarm razor show a strong, considered, feminist perspective.

Wow, that turned into an essay quickly! Feminism inspires me to diatribes like this. And I guess issues like these will never be black and white, so it’s just a matter of watching and deciding for ourselves: