Mark Romanek - Film/Music Video maker

Mark Romanek

Mark Romanek, born in Chicago Illinois is a famous film and music video maker. One of the best in the game, Romanek is renowned for his impressive and unique music videos and has made videos for some of the biggest artists in the music industry including Red Hot Chili Peppers, David Bowie and Johnny Cash. The video he made for Cash's incredible cover of Nine Inch Nail's hit 'Hurt' was particularly impressive and hailed by fans and critics with some even tipping it the most moving music video of all time. The song expresses self-hatred and this on top of clips of Cash quietly performing in his home are almost haunting and deep with emotion, particularly as the song was recorded shortly prior to his death. The song and video was released after Cash's death and  was nominated for seven VMAs, winning one for cinematography, also rewarding Romanek with his third grammy.

Another video that Mark Romanek is well known for directing is the american rock band's single 'Can't Stop' off the 2002 album 'By The Way'. The video features all four of the bands members doing ridiculously random actions with strange objects and equipment, such as putting different types of stationary up the bassist Flea's nose and face. 

Flea in the video of Can't Stop. Inspired by Edwin Wurm's "One Minute Sculptures"

Generally, the video is performance based but other strange activities that the band engage in include wearing a giant purple hippopotamus mask, playing with rubber balls, jumping, abstract scenes with boxes, water bottles, trash cans, flying through the air, pink foam peanuts, plants, and playing guitar in a room full of empty blue chairs/room with lamps turning on and off. Sculpture Erwin Wurm (left), was a significant inspiration when it came to making the video according to bassist Flea, also. Orange was chosen to be the general colour used throughout the video by Romanek. His creative hand attempted to mirror Wurm's abstract "One Minute Sculptures" (example pictured on right) by having the band perform random scenes which didn't really fit any purpose.

Other artists that Mark Romanek has produced music videos for include Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Iggy Pop.

Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin, a director of music and organist, who has been involved with Television, radio and broadcasting knows the differences of these areas in media. He has a theory when it comes to analysing music videos, their codes and conventions and narrative structure. There are 8 main principles, which are: 

1) Links between lyrics and visuals. 
2) Links between music and visuals.
3) Genre Characteristics.
4) Inter-textual reference.
5) Notions of looking.
6) Voyeurism.
7) Demands of the record label.
8) Performance based, narrative based, or concept based music videos.

I have researched various different music videos and applied

some Goodwin's theory's 8 main principles to them. 

Links between music and visuals
On the right you can see screenshots from Paul Weller's music video for the song 'The Changingman'. There are various points in the video that fit into the particular principle but I felt this part did more than the others. During this part there is a strange guitar riff which is quite upbeat and different to the rest of the song. At this point as you can see, the images are pretty similar but one has been edited and appears quite psychedelic in the one screenshot. The lady in the video continues to dance but the colour/effect keeps changing very rapidly during the duration of the strange riff to which creates a link between the music and visuals, therefore fitting in this principle of Goodwin's theory. 

Links between lyrics and visuals

On the right hand side you can see the screenshot of a clip from Arctic Monkeys music video of the song 'Black Treacle'. At this particular point in the song, there is a link between the lyrics and visuals. As the lyric 'Black Treacle' is mentioned in the video, this image of a tin of Lyle's Black Treacle is placed down. A similar image was also in fact used as the album artwork on release of the single.

Genre Characteristics
Here is a link to the band Peace's music video for their song 'Bloodshake'. It fits into the 'Genre Characteristics' principle of Goodwin's Theory as I believe it's quite typical of the indie/alternative genre. To go with the music, the video is very psychedelic and different to what you might find in a pop video, which is what I feel the people who listen to this type of music/band will want to see. 

Performance Based

Here is a screenshot from Miles Kane's music video of his single 'Rearrange'. This particular section of the video is performance based as Miles and his band are filmed performing the song. Often, performance based videos are effective in getting the artist's feelings and gestures across to the audience. Fans of the band/artist like to see performance based videos as it allows them to actually see the artist's themselves rather than actors.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog which contains my Media Studies coursework for A2 Level. In AS, we were asked to create a Thriller movie which I felt my group managed to achieve quite successfully. This year, I have decided not to work in a group and work on my own as I feel that way I will be able to achieve my aims and objectives much more affectively. Also, this year we have been given the opportunity to produce three different tasks - a music video, documentary or advertisement. As my life is quite music orientated and I dedicate a lot of my time to listening to music, and watching music videos, the decision was not a hard one and I chose to create a music video. I have copied and pasted the parts of the choosing brief from the OCR website that I used to help make my decision below. I hope you enjoy looking through my blog. 

Choosing Brief

‘When centres choose briefs to offer to candidates, they should be guided by their strengths in terms of resources and expertise. Centres should also bear in mind the key areas: forms and conventions, production contexts, the role of technologies, audiences/users and representations.’

The production element and presentation of research, planning and evaluation may be individual or group work (in which I have chosen to work alone).

You will need to produce:

-A media portfolio, comprising of a main and ancillary texts;

-A presentation of their research, planning and evaluation in digital format(s).

You may choose from the following main texts:

-Music Video

-Advert

-Documentary

-Computer/Video Game

As I have personally chosen to create a music video as my main task. Here is the main brief I need to focus on:

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

-A website homepage for the band;

-A digipak for the album’s release;

-A magazine advertisement for the digipak.

The options I have chosen are 'A digipak for album's release' and 'A magazine advertisement for the digipak' as I don't have regular access to web developing facilities.