Music Video Feedback
You should have all* just received your feedback from your Music Video analysis. Read through the notes I have made on your work.
On Friday, you will be sitting a mock assessment that will ask you to analysis one of the music videos we have looked at.
On the whole, I am very disappointed in your analysis.
Common Errors:
- Spelling, grammar and punctuation
- Not using any Media Language at all (long shot, mise en scene, tracking, pan etc.)
- Not explaining your points, some of you just seemed to point things out and left them there with no analysis.
- Some of you simply voiced your opinion with no reference to the Music Video at all.
- There was a lot of analysis of Lyrics with no reference to the music video.
*Some of you failed to hand anything in and I will be speaking to you individually about this.
How you should be analysing Music Videos
Use the following format to write your analysis.
What?: Make your point. What have you noticed that is significant?
How?: How has the artist created meaning? Use Media Language and evidence from the video.
Why?: Why has tha artist made this point? What is the message they are trying to get across.
Your analysis should then look like this...
Massive Attack's music video for their song, 'Unfinished Symphony' promotes a realistic representation of 'street life' in America. They have used a single take tracking shot of vocalist Shara Nelson to highlight the realism of the street scene she is miming the song through. The focus appears to be the street itself, rather than the performance as she is dressed in black and offers no stereotypical, emotive performance associated with mainstream audiences. Massive Attack appear to present the street in this way to highlight their views on the reality of poverty in the USA. The characters that feature in the background: a young father and his son; a disabled man on a skateboard; do not appear in a detrimental way but merely appear to be part of the atmosphere of the place. The poverty that surrounds them appears insignificant and instead the vast array of people become the focus emphasing the reality of street life rather than a glamorised version that audiences would expect to see from mainstream artists. Massive Attack, therefore, promoting a realistic and raw representation of the 'street.'
Other points you may wish to look at for Massive Attack
- Performance
- Mise en scene
- Opening and Ending
- Key characters
- Use of foreground / background
- Further analysis of the tracking shot
- The message of the video
Radiohead
Points you may wish to analyse from 'Burn the Witch'
- Use of stop-motion
- Use of the cyclical structure
- Reference to 'The Wicker Man' and 'Trumpington' (Intertextuality)
- Contrast between song and image
- The meaning behind the video (the message)
- Symbolism / Political Intention