Sunday 26 June 2011

AN - What I have done this week from 20/6/11 to 25/6/11 Part 1: Codes and Conventions

During the previous week, I begun the A2 Media course which involves creating a music video with a huge freedom of choice. Within the week, I started to learn many things about the music industry.


Firstly, I started off by learning the different codes and conventions used in music videos. In class, we had a look at three different Albanian music videos in order to find these codes and conventions. Beginning with concepts, we managed to find a couple which included, globalisation which is used to aim these music videos at different target audiences from different parts of the world. Another concept is the use of intertexuality in these videos, for example in Lady Gaga's music video for Bad Romance, there are many intertexual references to Madonna seen in the video which are a prime factor for the debate of feminism and post-feminism.


As for the codes and conventions, there are two prime conventions for music videos. The first of these conventions is narrative, which is used in most videos in our days, companies do this the music videos they create to give the company's desired target audience interest to watch the music video, due to this. The second prime convention is performance, which also used in music videos a lot these days. A combination of performance of both narrative and performance is often used in these videos, in order to give variety in the video.


Besides from the prime two conventions, other codes and conventions that are used in music videos include, fast paced editing which is used to give shot variety throughout the video and to create pace throughout it as well, depending on the song. Another example of a key convention is symbolism, although this is a convention that isn't usually thought about, it is used quite a bit in a music videos. A prime example is the Led Zeppelin song, Stairway to Heaven because if the song is played backwards, Satanic references could be heard.


Here is a link to more symbolism about the song and a video of the song being played backwards below:


 http://www.inthelight.co.nz/ledzep/stairway.htm

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