Research into Chosen Music Genre
The music genre that my group and I have chosen is Psychedelic rock and we have chosen the music video "Feels like were only going backwards" by Tame Impala to reflect this. Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired by psychedelic culture and to try to replicate psychedelic drugs. I have chosen this music genre as it has good artists who make interesting music to listen to and visually impressive videos which is very unconventional compared to other music genres. My inspirations for this genre are The Black Angels, Jimmy Hendrix and Tame Impala as they are some of the best artists in the genre. Our groups interest in the genre has mainly come from how unusual it is and how editing is used compared to other more mainstream genres such as pop. The two artists and their videos which i have chosen that are similar to Tame Impala are the The Black Angels with the song Doves and Animal Collectives Brothersport , who are both psychedelic rock artists and both conform to the genre.
Animal Collective, Brothersport
There are many codes and conventions in this video that are connected with the psychedelic rock genre of music. One way that the video is very conventional to the genre is that the video uses surreal images in a relatively ordinary scene. For example a man is dressed up as a goat being chased by a woman who is dressed up as a dog in a ordinary field, which is very unusual for a music video. This is showing the extraordinary things in a relatively ordinary scene which is typical of the psychedelic rock genre. A second convention is the special effects and editing that is used throughout the video which are often seen in psychedelic rock videos. One way we can see this is the different coloured lights that fall from the sky like rain when the screen goes black. The reason they use this editing style is to give the video a free flowing style which is unrestricted from normal colours and images so that the artist can portray what they want.
Mise en scene is also used in many different ways in the psychedelic rock music video Brothersport. The costume in the video is used in very different ways depending on the person, for example one person is dressed in jeans and a white vest while another is dressed up as a goat. This could be trying to show how some people see things differently from others which can be seen in there dress. The location of the video is a farm and a house that gets painted on the inside, this could be doing something that would not be done in a typical music video as they often use glamorous locations. Throughout the video the lighting also changes frequently, starting off with high key lighting then going to low key lighting and then high key lighting again., which we can see in the pictures below.
There are many different types of camera shots used in the video of Brothersport by Animal Collective, the first used in the video is an establishing shot at the start of the video, which then moves to a mid shot of the people sitting by the caravan as people start to run past them. Then as the video progresses a tracking shot is used as two people run through fields which becomes the main part of the video. After they run into a building there are close up shots and middle shots which flick from one to the other, and it finishes with a close up of a child's face. There are also many different types of editing in the video, with the video being based around fast editing at a set pace. There are also things such as a jump cut when the two people are running through the field and lots of special effects used which change the scenes dramatically. The target audience for this video has an age range between the ages of 15 to 35. This can be seen in ways such as more adult images and the fact that a younger audience may not understand the video enough to watch it.The target age would find it enjoyable as they have other videos to compare it to which will show its uniqueness.
The Black Angels - Doves
The music video Doves by The Black Angels is also conventional of the psychedelic rock genre in many ways. One way we can see that this video is very conventional is the bold colours used throughout the video which are mainly seen in the editing of the video. These colours include red, green,orange and blue and these colours are used on things that are not normally these colours. Other things included are that the video seems to be half in black and white with many things being only seen by their outline in the video , such as the doves that fly through the scene. This is especially seen in the way that the doves are in constant contrast with the c background. For example in the picture below we can see how the doves go through the scenes unchanged with a ever different background , which is showing the doves going on a journey.
Mise en scene is used in a very different way from many other videos which would be from different genres.One way it goes against the norm is that there is no set location and it just seems to be different scenes stringed together with no familiarity such as when the snake moves into the field and then the scene focuses in a dove. There is no costume used in this video and it could be said that the colour changes have something to add to the video. The main forms of editing in this video are a straight cut which happens very frequently throughout the video and a slow paced editing is used. The editing however is very
complex as shots do not seem to change but just transform into each other such as the two below being side by side.
The research that I carried out into the genre will help me very much in the planning of the video as i now have a better understanding of the artists and there point of view. This can be seen in the way I now know the conventions which are based around the genre and I know how other artists have presented it which will help me in my own video. I will now be considering the use of lots of editing in our video as it has worked very well with conventional music videos , however we will be trying not to alienate the people who like main stream music. So I may try to decrease the amount of editing but still use it in my own video.
This post demonstrates some understanding of the codes and conventions of your chosen music genre. You have made a start in identifying some of the conventions, but the points that you have included are too vague and this is because you have generalised all your points into one paragraph.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, you need to read over your points and ensure that you have included detailed examples to support the points that you have made. Also within your summary you need to include inspirations that you have gathered from your research and what you would like to include within your own music video.