Green Day- Wake Me Up When September Ends (Illustrative, Amplifying or Disjunctive)

Looking at this video, it is clear that there are two separate plots intertwining between the music and the story unfolding before the audience. For this reason, I feel that this music video is mainly amplifying; even though the music has a specific meaning, there is another sub layer to the story which makes the video feel more realistic to the audience. This is particularly shown through the use of cuts throughout the video; there are breaks in the music, in order to make way for the sub-plot to unfold. This helps to develop the emotional viewpoints of the characters by focusing the entire point of the video on the plot rather than the music being played.

The story is based around a couple's young love. It is a fairly typical scene of a couple kissing and being in love. However, the ending of their relationship is suddenly revealed with the break up at the end, giving the video a more realistic portrayal of the evolution of love. This makes the video and the genre of music fit perfectly, as they give an almost ruthless style of progression throughout. The “Rock” like style of the music unifies the plot because it represents rebellion opposed to what is usually expected from a love story.

Two shots are used throughout the video in order to give the audience the familiarity of a fluid conversation between both characters. In addition to this, close ups also help the audience to experience the emotional aspects of the video that develop further on. This results in the audience being more immersed in the events of each character.

Hand-held shots are also compiled throughout the video to build the overview of a realistic interpretation to what can happen to love, being not always beautiful, etc. I believe that this use of camera technique, combined with the use of shots where the camera pans across the scene of the couple, helps to bring the audience into the story. The music and its lyrics also help to tie the story line and the video together. This is shown by the pace and rhythm of the song starting of slow – where the couple starts off in love, and ends in a fast paced louder style of music – the lyrics mention the arrival of September, representing the end of a cycle, and ultimately death.This again fits well with the end of love. Furthermore, the shots of war shown at the end of the video correspond well with the drama created by the arguments between the two characters.

Underlying Structure of a Music Video

There are different theory’s which relate to how a story is structured. This is usually found in books and films. However these things can also be found in a music video whereas the feature itself, either being illustrating, amplifying or disjunctive, can contain a story/meaning which can affect the finishing portrayal of the video.

There are different theories with different meanings, all with their own approach toward analysing the structure of a story. It is important to therefore research and analyse the effects of such theories in a music video to see if I would like to apply them further on in my coursework.

The first theorist (Todorov) believes that there is 5 main key structure points in order to make a story.

These are:

1. Equilibrium – where there is a current situation where everything is normal.
2. Disruption – The thing which disrupts the normality of that situation
3. Recognition – The state of being acknowledged; e.g. a super hero could save the day...
4. Reparation – The state of repair; e.g. the super hero is going to save the day...
5. New Equilibrium – A brand new situation caused by the effect of the Disruption, Recognition and Reparation.

Note: The actual equilibrium at the start could be bad as well as good and form a new equilibrium as opposites; visa versa.

The second theorist (Vladimir Propp) believed that there were certain spheres of action which caused events in a story. These spheres of action would then create and resolve a story by cancelling each other out.

These spheres of action were:

The Hero – Seeks something

The Villain – Obstructs the Hero’s quest

Helper - helps the hero to achieve his quest.

Donor - contributes to the story

Princess - Princess

Farther - Carer of Princess

Dispatcher - Sends out Hero

False Hero - Believes is doing good, but in fact is doing opposite.

The Killers - When You Were Young

Here you can see the story of a disciple - Hero, exploring and giving to the less fortunate - The Victim.

Classifying Music Videos

There are different ways in which Music Videos are separated and classified into their own Genre. Theories and systems for this are as follows:

One theory included is from Andrew Goodwin. He states that there are a number of key features in music Videos that help to classify and break up music videos into their own separate categories.

These are as follows:

• A relationship between lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
• A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
• Genre-related style and iconography present.
• Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist
• Voyeurism (Pleasure of looking), often plays a major part, especially in the relation to females.
• Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.

Looking at an example of the video below we can see that all of these features of present showing that the theory of Goodwin is present in most modern music videos.

There are three ways as a whole that videos can also relate to visuals of a song.

These are as follows:

Illustrating:

“The meaning of the lyrics and genre.”

This means that the video is taken on a very literal basis. An example of this is as follows.

As you can see here the whole concept and feel of the video is fairly over the top in the way that everything is played out exactly according to the song.

Amplifying:

“The original songs meaning and effect”

The video adds another layer of meaning – another way of seeing the music:

e.g. Oasis – Rock n’ Roll Star

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Disjuncture:

Work by ignoring or rejecting the songs original meaning. Often bases on abstract imagery.

e.g. Daft Punk – Da Funk

Music Video Analyse - Redundancy & Entropic

Video Skills - Technical Planning

In my project I am hoping to progress my skills further in all aspects of media. Below are certain skill sets which I am I particular hoping to improve in.

One skill in particular includes the original Creativity/Originality process in creating the idea for my Video in the Pre-Production process.

Last year I struggled in creating an original idea. In order to improve this I will this time explore suggestive ideas from a different range of topics in order to get a more specific idea of the way I am going to direct the Video towards. This will allow the Video to be clearer in the Pre-Production as well as Pro-Production as it will allow my knowledge base to expand, thus the quality of the project. This will also benefit me in the editing stage of the video as I will have a clearer idea of the direction the video is heading and where I will need to improve.

Ideas gathered in research this time will therefore be from a broader range of information. This will therefore include films, books and the internet. This should help to give a strong foundation in order to build my project upon in order to achieve professionalism.

Another skill needing work on includes the Production process of filming the Video. Camera skills is a priority for me to grasp in order for the Video to look industry standard and thus grab my target audience.

Last year I grasped the concepts of holding the camera steady through various shots, as well as mastering using the camcorder to develop a high range of appropriate shots. These ranged from CU’s to managing the filming conditions. I learnt here that multiple shots may need to be recorded in order to offer choice at the editing stage, where weather conditions play a huge role in the development of the film becoming fluid.

Continuity is another skill I developed which I shall be carrying across in order to achieve a high quality piece of Video work.

In order to do this I will adopt the same tactics from last year and apply them to this piece of work.

However this year I need to work on getting Dead Space and Camera movement mastered to keep the video flowing and keep the audience watching. I will therefore practise using a range of skills whilst allowing myself enough time to get familiar with the aspects, in order for myself to be ready when the time comes to put my skills learnt to work.

Another Production skill that posed a problem last year was the Lighting Conditions in which film was captured. This was a problem due to the weather changing, meaning that continuity between each shot was poor due to the different hue and saturation between each transition of shot. Therefore the video did not feel coherent and resulted in the Video being clunky and difficult to focus on.

This time I will take note of weather conditions and if so, and most likely, will find a way to control the lighting conditions around each shot in order for it to look similar. Allowing enough time to replicate mistakes may also be wise however may not be convenient for the people filmed. Therefore this is another skill needing to be mastered in order to be as prepared as possible.

This year it may also be wise to delve into adjusting the lighting effects on the capture video to make it stand out and could be useful for minor background tweaks.

Organisation and Logs are particularly important this year as I feel it is needed to delegate roles and take notes to confirm events. This includes the confirmation of a certain shot as well as organising equipment. This will lead to effective efficiency and will help to prevent carless mistakes in the long run, such as forgetting to record an important shot or forgetting a prop. I will therefore be creating a log to be shown later to show the process of undertaking organisation.

I also feel it is important to exchange phone numbers in order to stay in contact to confirm certain dates such as filming and editing times/places.

I will also be keeping my blog up to date to prevent the loss of important information.