Music Video Analysis - Paradise (DONE)

Coldplay - Paradise
Paradise was a single from Coldplay's fifth studio album 'Mylo Xyloto'. The song was originally written for X-Factor winner Melodie Amaro. The album has singles on it such as 'Princess of China' and Every Teardrop is a Waterfall. Both of these videos took a narrative route as well as Paradise. The video starts off with the opening titles on the screen with a background of a wild scene. This immediately cuts to a scene of an 'elephant' behind bars who lets out a sigh. This maybe to show what the dreams of the elephant are, to be in the wild. This sets off the theme of the video which are for the elephant to escape to the wild. We see the elephant adding to a tally which appears to be the days he's been trapped. This is similar to humans in prison and this personifies the elephant because he acts in the same way. He then begins frantically trying to escape and breaks the lock open. We see the elephant run out of the 'zoo' being chased by two police men which again personifies the situation because normally policemen would not chase an 'animal' from a zoo. The following shots are short sharp shots to increase the intensity of the video. We can tell from the speed of the shots that the elephant is close to reaching the way out of his situation and we see this when he clocks a heathrow airport sign on the tube and the next shot cuts to him hiding in a hangar at an airport. After getting on the plane the elephant arrives at his destination and we can see this with the combination of a shot of his plane touching down and an establishing shot of the new scenery. The next few seconds is filled with multiple shots combined but they all share the same background. We can see the elephant dancing and holding boards with the lyrics on them.

 There's also a board asking for money laid on the ground which makes the audience realise that the elephant is busking for money. The elephant then arrives at a bicycle shop and immediately the audience knows he wants to buy one because he's been raising money. He then puts the money he raised on the counter and points to a bike that he wants, to then get told he can only afford a unicycle. This makes the audience feel sorry for the character whilst at the same time feel happy because he's found a mode of transportation. The following shots are a sequence of frames showing him riding his unicycle along roads and tracks until he finally reveals himself as being Chris Martin, the frontman of Coldplay. This finally makes us realise why they have been trying to personify the elephant, because it was a human. The video is edited chronologically because all the shots of the elephant reaching his destination come in order of events, and there is only one flashback which features at the very start. After a few establishing shots, we can see the same wild scene as we saw at the start, this means that the start was not the dream for the 'elephant' but was a flashback, the colour of this setting in the set set dark orange, this is because orange represents enthusiasm, determination, strength, endurance, success and encouragement. It also gives the sensation of heat, which re-enforces the location that the video is set. This links in with the target audience because the colour orange is 'highly accepted' among young people. The next shot is a shot of the elephant walking in a field with unicycle in tow, this in when we first see more wildlife in the form of giraffes, and finally we see the rest of his 'heard' in the form of his bandmates dressed in elephant costumes.

This makes the audience aware that the rest of the video will not have a narrative as the elephant has finally reached his destination. This is right because the rest of the video is indeed performance based. The video switches almost seamlessly from characters in a desert to the characters doing a live performance on stage. They are still wearing the elephant heads though so they were prepared to film part of the video when they performed live.

Media Theorists (DONE)

Binary Opposites

Claude Levi Strauss


He believed that the way we understood certain words depends not so much on their actual meaning but by our understanding it’s ‘opposite’. He then produced the theory binary opposites. A protagonist and antagonist or Heroine and villain are both examples of binary opposites. Binary opposites are very frequently used in films, especially in the horror genre, many of the films include binary oppositions in their plots. Good and evil is the most common binary opposite shown to the public through the media field on different platforms. They are usually the basis of our understanding of a story as it is a conventional narrative and are used in music videos as part of a narrative to reinforce song lyrics. Levi Strauss’ theory coincides with our 'ideological' perspectives in the world. He also stated that there is a human need to classify.


The Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey

The gaze is the way certain members of an audience view the characters who are being portrayed within a production.

For feminists it can be seen in 3 different ways:

• How men look at women
• How women look at themselves
• How women look at other women

Gaze and Feminist Theory:

Laura Mulvey came up with the male gaze theory in 1975. She believes that every member of an audience should view characters from a heterosexual male’s point of view.

Features of the Male Gaze:

Laura Mulvey believes that the camera lingers on the curves of the female body. She also believes that women’s activity within a piece of film is largely presented in the context of a man’s reactions to those particular activities or events. This could portray women as objects. For example, in the song ‘Loyal’ by Chris Brown he suggests that riches will easily cause a girl to convert from her current partner. This supports Laura Mulveys theory because this is how a male might interpret women.

Counter Argument:

Some women enjoy being looked at

It could also be aimed towards the same gender and sexually irrelevant. Eg. Body image or clothing.

 A good example of the male gaze is Shakira's video featuring Rihanna - Can't Remember to Forget You. The whole video consists of the two women dancing in a provocative way and dressed in next to nothing. This is clearly because the video would do very well on television and even youtube people would definitely watch it more than once.

Goodwins theory

Goodwins main points:

• The link between the lyrics and the visuals within a music video

• The link between the music and the visuals within a music video

• Genre characteristics

• Intertextuality references

• Notions of looking

• Voyeurism

• Demand of the record label

• Performance based, concept based or narrative based music videos

Lyrics and visuals

This is where the lyrics within a song match the visuals that are occurring within the music video. For example, when Lethal Bizzle sings, “Rari Worout” he is seen to be doing a ‘workout whilst in a Ferrari (Rari).

Music and visuals

This is where the pace of the music matches either the intensity of the music video or the speed of the cuts. For example, in Martin Garrix’s ‘Animals’, the pace of the cuts speed up when the beat ‘drops’.

Genre Characteristics

Genre characteristics is when the mise en scene and activities within the music video match the usual representations of that specific genre. For example, in the music video of drakes ‘started from the bottom’ he is seen to be in extremely flashy cars and clothes. This suits the usual representation of the hip-hop/rap genre.

Notions of looking

The notion of looking theory is simply the idea of how when the artist of the song looks into the camera, it feels like you are being involved in the music. For example, in the black eyed peas ‘where is the love?’ will.i.am looks into the camera an awful a lot. This could not only draw the consumer in but make them feel like part of the band.

Demand of the record label

The record label will demand certain things within the music video that suits such things as age group or genre. An example being a party atmosphere or certain objects. The reason for this is because the label may believe that certain things would sell more, therefore make them more money.

Performance based music video

A performance based music video is simply a video of the act performing on stage (not a live performance). These music videos are used to get a clear message across to the consumer. This is done by the performers using very clear gestures, therefore clearly expressing their emotions. For example, in the Outkast’s, ‘Hey ya’ video they are jumping and dancing around the stage. This shows that they are extremely happy, which matches the ‘feel good’ song.

History of the Music Video (DONE)

History of the Music Video

A music video is an illustration behind the sound track of a song. The purpose of a music video can be viewed in two ways; the way that music videos can be shown on television rather than the now dying out platform of radio. This means that they can advertise or self promote on television as well as radio. It can also be seen as a way to tell the story behind a song without making it clearly obvious through sound.

1894 - The video ever made could be compared to a slideshow rather than a video, mainly because they had no way of filming so they had almost a flipbook initiative, this was aided by the invention of the zoetrope earlier in the 19th century, which made pictures spin in between frames making the eye believe they were moving, however this video was made using a 'magic lantern' which uses light to project a picture onto a screen, like the modern projector. The music was over the song 'The Little Lost Child' and consisted of a man playing violin whilst another man sang, it was created by Edward B Marks and John Stern. If you fast forward to 1929, the music video concept, created by Marks and Stern, was called a 'Talkie' short for 'talking picture'. In the same year Bessie Smith's song St. Louis Blues was recorded as a dramatised film even though it was released four years prior to the release of the original song. 1956 saw the production of the first 'music video' which was set to Tony Bennett's 'Stranger in Paradise' which aired on 'American Bandstand' an American TV show, a year later, Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock was released. In 1961 music videos were starting to be made in a more conventional manner, i.e. recording certain visuals paired with lip syncing eventually overlaid on a music track, on Canadian TV show 'Singalong Jubilee'. Three years later the Beatles took part in the mockumentary feature film 'A Hard Days Night' which was filmed in black and white. 1974 saw the birth of music television in Australia with 'Countdown' and 'Sounds Unlimited' or 'Sounds', where producers would show music videos or even make a backing video for a track that didn't previously have one. Countdown followed suit when they realised that their was money in this way of marketing music, and Ian Meldrum, the man who realised this would go on to have Paul Drane produce music videos for AC/DC, as well as producing The Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star' which was the first music video to be played on MTV in 1981. 

Who am I? What am I even doing? (DONE)

Who am I?

I am Ben Oxford.

What am I doing?

I am doing Media Studies at A2 level. As part of my course I am going to make a music video, I am thinking about several videos to re-create, but for me one in particular stands out as being the most suitable. This would be 96 F*ckries by JME. This song fits in perfectly with my previous research and my knowledge for the genre would indicate that it is the most suitable.

What happened last year?

Last year I created a film opening to a reasonable standard which received marks in the high 50's. Im looking to replicate that this school year with a member of my last project.