This video has over 635 millions views it ravels black culture and whats its like having to grow up around violent and guns. The video includes mostly only black Americans and continuously quotes "This is america" before showing a scene of violent. It shows innocent people getting hurt and shot at (these people only include black Americans) there are also areas of police brutally when people are being forcefully dragged away by police. The reason for the videos large amount of views is because it shows social and ethic issues in society surrounding guns and violent.
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Camera work - looks like a continuous take (steady-cam)
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Meaning - dancing in the middle of chaos, symbolic code, red every time a gun is taken away, massacre, black violent, police brutally.
Music Video Analysis
Designated videos
Emily Sande – Heaven
feature their respective artist(s) and are a mixture of performance and narrative, and raise a number of similar representational issues surrounding ‘street life’.
Radiohead - Burn The Witch
does not feature the artist(s) but celebrates the power of narrative and signification and a postmodern emphasis on intertextuality. The video contrasts clearly with the representations featured in Heaven
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Media language: how the media through their forms, codes, conventions and techniques communicate meanings. (social group)
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Media representations: how the media portray events, issues, individuals and social groups. (links between text and issues)
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Media industries: how the media industries’ processes of production, distribution and circulation affect media forms and platforms
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Media audiences: how media forms target, reach and address audiences, how audiences interpret and respond to them and how members of audiences become producers themselves.
What are music videos?
A music video can be defined as a filmed and edited performance of a recorded song.
The main purpose of a music video is to promote the single, the album the single is from and the artist to a wide an audience as possible. To do this the album has to:​
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Sell the song in a way that helps the audience remember it from the video
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Provide the viewer with a better understanding of the song so that they can engage with it visually and audibly
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Entertain the viewer by highlighting the talents of the artists – dancing, singing performing and their physical appearance.
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Intertextuality : is the links between two different media texts and links within pop culture and other media outputs.
Post modernism : a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterised by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories.
Signification : the representation or conveying of meaning
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Another way of categorizing music videos is in terms of the way they look and how we see the artist.
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Performance: this is where we hear the song and see the artist performing in a number of locations and settings. The video will cut between locations at different points in the song but we always seethe artist singing. Locations, settings, camera angles and edits are key to this type of video.
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Storyline: The lyrics and/or feeling of the song are used to help create a story. The artist may or may not feature in the music video. These are sometimes known as narrative music videos and may look like a short film with the song in the background
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Experimental: These can be storyline and or performance music videos but may not be related to the lyrics or feature the artist. They may not make sense, but they create a mood, tone or comment that drives the video. This type of music video is also known as conceptual
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Rock – musicians performing, light shows, fire/sparks, deep narrative, CGI, emphasis on instruments being played, close-up shots of equipment, slutty background dancers, Gothic, drug use.
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HIP HOP – firearms, minimal narrative, flex material, squad material, cameos, misogyny, swagger, lots of people.
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POP – dance, colourful, repetitive, using same shot many times e.g. for the chorus, bright lights, costumes.
In this music video they continuously flash back to old videos and memories they have together to the present day were the group has split up. It is meant to have a sad narrative but they show this in a happy pop tone, it has a story line style as they go through their lives together and show how they got where they are now. The reason behind the song is upsetting but has been shown in a happy way.
In this music video they tell a sad love story line from the point of view of Adele where she says she is sorry to an old lover and says how she is upset they don't talk to each other anymore. The genre is a sad pop song. The whole video uses a toned down filter throughout the video to add a sad and dull style to the scenes once again adding a upsetting element to the video.
This is a sad Gothic rock genre song where the point of view is a man on his death bed moving onto the after life looking back on his young childhood growing up. He goes on to say all the things he had wished to do as a child and all that his father had hoped he would experience, but dying at a young age has prevented this as he dies alone with only the nurses to be there with him.
Emily Sande – Heaven
To begin with the video starts of with a close up shot of the artist placed on the left side of the image, the lighting is dark and the shadows as well as the sunlight are highlighted as a key point in the video making the artist seem more mysterious to the viewer.
The video then switches to scenes surrounding the ideas of the people in their everyday life such as the women walking down the stairs in a red dress and then to the man sitting on the floor both seem to be having a difficult time as well when considering the lyrics "will you recognise me" is a upsetting tone as if shes asking people she know if they still she her as who she is after everything that has gone on in her life.
It then goes back to only featuring the artist as she sings loudly as if she is suggesting we are all linked and she is struggling. A small colour tint as if people are looking at her through a Len and penetrating she is still who she used to be before she got famous.
The camera then goes back to showing the viewers suffering in their own life, the female has a red tinted lens and seems to be suffering with mental health, the first man is looking into the camera and is showing his vulnerability as in general he seems unwell and is struggling to cope, the third man seems to be dead probably from a drug overdose, while the last man you cannot see anything other then his face, they have focused on forcing the viewer to look dead onto his eyes so they will have to see him and feel bad for him.
it then goes into a close up of the artist eyes to show the similarity between her and the others on the streets showing that this can effect everyone.
Children are featured in the video to show the change from innocence to violent and to reflect on how they were when they were younger as well as revealing how any child can become a vitamin of violent or grow up to be a drug addict when they are older.
The passing of the lighter could show the continuation of the drug addict problems being passed on to the younger generation until the screen turns to white and the music starts to fade into the end of the video.
Viewpoint - Celebrates the desire to be better possibly a religious message.
Media language - Social realist media language depicts the sorrows caused by temptation but also suggests the power of redemption.
London is now home to more than 8.6 million people, the highest the city's population has been since 1939. What's more, 44% of London now consists of black and ethnic minorities, compared to only 28.9% in 2001.
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Bethnal Green had a total population of 27,849 at the 2011 census, based on the north and south wards of Bethnal Green. The largest single ethnic group is people of Bangladeshi descent, which constitute 38 percent of the area's population.
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REALISM IS REAL
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Class - 31% C1, 25% D/E
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editing reflects urban
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contrast film grain
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low key/ low satiation clips
LINKS
blue velvet
burn the witch
hang man
x on door
drowning the witch
wicker man
trummon - d.trump
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EDITING
stop motion.
cut scenes.
puppets to reflect child
like innocence.
changes on the beat of a song.
film camera used.
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LYRICS
Stay in the shadows
Cheer at the gallows
This is a round up
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This is a low flying panic attack
Sing a song on the jukebox that goes
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Burn the witch
Burn the witch
We know where you live
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Red crosses on wooden doors (BLOOD / DEATH)
And if you float you burn (USE TO DO THIS TO WITCHES)
Loose talk around tables
Abandon all reason (IGNORE THE LACK OF REALITY)
Avoid all eye contact
Do not react
Shoot the messengers
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This is a low flying panic attack
Sing the song of sixpence that goes
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Burn the witch
Burn the witch
We know where you live
We know where you live
•Learners should investigate how the elements of the theoretical framework for media language are used to construct representations that appeal to particular audiences, including a consideration of the influence of historical, social and cultural contexts. Consideration should be made of media language elements specific to music videos such as camera shots, angles, lighting, settings, locations, costumes, props, makeup, editing and sound as appropriate.
And finally, what’s with that bird? It’s a cuckoo, actually. At the end of The Wicker Man, the community sings an actual medieval song, “Sumer Is Icumen In,” with lyrics that include: “Loudly sing, cuckoo! / Grows the seed and blows the mead / And springs the wood anew.” In the movie, those lyrics are ironic.
Before he arrives, plans are afoot. We see the residents nodding in agreement with a civic leader. This guy wears some kind of ceremonial outfit and a medal. In The Wicker Man, this potentate is played by Christopher Lee, whose fearsome onscreen roles—from Dracula to Saruman—speak for themselves.
The happy painter makes a red cross on a door. It surprises the guy inside, who leans out of his window, alarmed. This is a direct reference to Yorke’s lyrics (“Red crosses on wooden doors”) but also, obliquely, to the ancient “Rosicrucianism” tradition associated with witches and spells.
That’s not a seesaw but a dunking chair. The blond girl waves to the officer from high up in the air. She’s not on a seesaw, but a dunking chair, a device used mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries to test if accused women floated or sank. If the result was the former, they were decreed to be supernaturally cursed and burned.
Another girl is menaced by six swordsmen. She’s tied to a tree. In The Wicker Man, this ritual is explained (in what has to be the creepiest scene set in a library) as one of many associated with May Day: six masked swordsman locking blades in the shape of the sun. In the video, they make this shape this over the girl’s head.
Our hero has seen enough, but still he goes on. He sees a bleeding carcass in front of a bakery (there’s a bakery in The Wicker Man that makes cakes shaped like rabbits and babies) and a floral-decorated noose hanging from a maypole. We’d be outta there by this point. Those things can’t be on his checklist.
A hanging station that is decorated in colourful flowers as if their is some kind of beauty behind death and that what they are doing is right. The hero seems shocked and worried at the same time.
He becomes a human sacrifice. Our hero burns. In The Wicker Man, he’s a sacrifice to the sun god, made to stave off another bad crop. Woodward’s policeman is also a strongly observant Christian (and a virgin, he admits), making his sacrifice extra potent in the eyes of the pagan community. The crowd cheers.
"Abandon all reason, Avoid all eye contact" The villages turn away from the man as he burns to death as if they are ignoring their own reasoning and refusing to except that maybe what they are doing is not right.
And finally in the last few moments of the video the editor has looped the whole movie together by including the bird at the end of the music and to everyone's surprise the hero is still alive as he flees from the scene.
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more then one ethnicity.
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more immigrants hidden away
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being told when to wave
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is a strap at Donald trump
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ukips rise to power
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Intertextual reference to the late 1960s children television program.
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The way they are ordered to wave by the man with the stick carries connotations of propaganda films such Nazi films showing happy inmates of civilized concentration camps.
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Connotations contrasts with dark narrative and, in doing so, accentuates its darkness.
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The mise-en-scene tries to create a sense of shock to establish critical distance from the fictional world.
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Viewpoint opposed to enforcing community and solidarity by exclusion and exploitation.
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Connotations from that films narrative of an apparently happy, stable and conformist world hiding disturbingly dangerous social and sexual elements under its surface.
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Radio head - A critical viewpoint opposed to enforcing community and solidarity by exclusion and exploitation.
Incongruity in the media language - the disparity between the narrative and mise-en-scene tries to create a sense of shock to establish critical distance from the fictional world.
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Poverty - the state of being extremely poor.
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Capitalism - an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
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Hedonism - the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence/ the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life.
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Consumerism - the protection or promotion of the interests of consumers.
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Individualism - the habit or principle of being independent and self-reliant / A social theory favouring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.
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Xenophobia - dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries
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Nationalism - identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.
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Globalisation - the process by which businesses or other organisations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale.
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Populism - a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
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Authoritarianism - the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.
Haven
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Naturalism – The opposite of expressionism, Media language that is self-effacting to suggest a transparent window on the world.
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Social realism - the realistic depiction in art of contemporary life, as a means of social or political comment.
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Linear narrative – narrative with a beginning middle and end in which earlier events cause later events. The causal chain is key – the narrative can use flashbacks and flash forwards to change the order in which events are narrated.
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Expressionism – The opposite of naturalism. Media language that draws attention to itself, that expresses emotional states.
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Post modernism – A very general set of ideas about culture after modernism. It is things that stray away from tradition and create something pure and new out of intertextuality. Uses playful and ironic ways to show this.
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Heaven relates to social realism as the video shows life through a creative and artistic way to show the effects of addiction and other mental health illnesses the location of the video has not been changed at all to show just how real the video is, naturalism also relates as the video allows people to see life through a Len through other peoples eyes.
The video from Emeli Sanda rely on the idea of the street established in film and television, and the idea of 'street life' as rich in character and variety.
Individualism is shown as the video portrays how Emeli herself grow up in that rough area and still managed to find success from such a dark place meaning that she has overcome a already determined future.
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Burn The Witch
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Xenophobia - dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries
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Nationalism - identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.
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Globalisation - the process by which businesses or other organisations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale.
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Populism - a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
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Authoritarianism - the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.
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Consumerism - the protection or promotion of the interests of consumers.
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(Them vs us) The most noticeable elements that are reflected in the video are Xenophobia, Authoritarianism and Nationalism this is shown by the enforcement shown in the video of the bruning of outsiders to the locking up of people how disagree with the system.