Riptide - Media Set Product 9

Riptide - Media Set Product 9

Differences between music videos and films

• Music videos are approximately three minutes long whereas films are 90 minutes long.
• Music videos typically feature only one song whereas films use multiple songs.
• Music videos are shorter so will typically have a low budget compared with films.

Music videos and celebrities

• Most focus on a performer, the artist of the song, as a celebrity.
• Celebrity - 'The attribution of glamorous or notorious status to somebody in the public sphere'. 
• Celebrities are people who have gained popularity from the media, usually known for a talent.

Example, 'Stupid Love' - Lady Gaga

She is constructed as a celebrity by:

• Codes and conventions - It is structured by her doing a performance by dancing and singing, which shows that she is the celebrity.
• Camera work - Lady Gaga is usually in the centre of the shot, making her the focus of the video, constructing her as a celebrity.
• Editing - The beat of the song matches with the dancing and choreography.
• Elements of continuity/montage - We see Lady Gaga in the centre and we see familar dancers around.
• How does the video interpret the music and/or lyrics?- The lyrics, 'look at me now', this makes the audience looks at her and giver her attention giving the impression that she is the celebrity.
• Intertextuality - Power Rangers, Divatox, Sailor Moon.
• Mise-en-scene – colour, lighting, location, costume/dress, hair/make-up - The costumes and make-up is different from the rest of the dancers making her stand out, she isn't like the rest making her appear as a celebrity.

Riptide - Music Video - Analysis, themes and contexts - Symbolic readings and representation of women

• 2013.
• Sang by Vance Joy, an austrailian artist.
• Indie pop.
• Unconventional as it doesn't feature the artist in the music video.

We first see a woman with a dental brace, close up to see her expression of being shocked and scared, with a contrast of lighting; this makes it seem like a horror.
Imagery of fear.

Lyrics - 'I was scared of dentists and the dark'.

The next thing you see is the dim swinging light, it looks like there is a storm outside (wind moving the light), which further follows the conventions of horror.

You then see a woman on the beach, juxtaposing the last scene. 
The next thing the audience sees is a book and a hand, perhaps the same woman or another; the book is called 'Techniques of photographing girls', this could link to the beach scene that she might be a model.
Feminist theory - Zoonen - hooks - women are objects to be looked at.

There are two more characters introduced, a man and a woman, who turn their heads.

After this, we see money, suggests that they are only interested in money.

Lyrics- 'all my friends are turning green'.

A man (could be the man from before) wearing a brown coat, holding a queen of spades, which appears into his hand, and waving his hand around it.
The camera shifts to a woman wearing a brown coat similar to the man's coat, and she is raising her arms over her head, looking like she is posing, maybe the man controls her and is under his spell (magician).

See her again, wearing a white coat, standing in a cementery in the dark holding a fire torch, contrasting with the previous day images. She looks like she is looking for something and turns and makes a 'come here' motion.
The camera shifts to the left to see another man and a woman also holding a torch looking shocked and confused, the camera shifts back and she has disappeared. 

The woman is then seen tied onto a tree and trying to untie herself, she then escapes.
This further follows the generic conventions of horror of being in a cementery then in a forest tied up. 
The lighting is quite dark but then lights up when she is running away.
Then there is a scene of crashing waves, suggesting everything is coming crashing down for the woman.

The audience then sees a woman sleeping in the night suggested by the lighting. She is then pulled away screaming suggested by her facial expression and her body language of her hand holding out - generic convention of horror.
It then goes pitch black.

Lyrics - 'taken to the darkside'.

Then we see a woman holding a microphone with her left hand and the word 'left' flashing on the screen with the lyrics 'be your left hand man'. She then appears singing into the microphone with a black background and stage lighting. She looks glamourous, and that she should be looked at.

The audience then sees someone holding a VHS tape of a film called 'Velocite', translated into 'Velocity' which is a MotoGP film.
Lyrics - 'this movie that I think you'll like'.And then we see someone lifting up a letter of resignation in the 'Australian Space Research Institute' in 1974.
Lyrics - 'guy decideds to quit his job'.
Next, a one-way plane ticket and a plane flying. Lyrics - 'move to New York City'.

We then see a man dressed as a cowboy in a desert. Who was seen earlier in the cementery scene - could link to Western films. Lyrics- 'this cowboy's been running from himself'. We see a woman, again on a balcony looking through binoculars, looking directly at the camera - direct address. Semiotic codes - engima codes - the audience will wonder what she is looking at or for. it also looks like we are spying on her behind bushes.

The audience then sees someone walking in the dark with a torch, could also possibly be looking for something?
Next, the audience sees someone pulling two ice-lollies apart. Binary oppositions, with a symbolic code of a relationship broken and is a polysemic reading.
Lyrics- 'and they come unstuck'.
Next, the woman running, we only see her feet, the lyrics - 'running down'.
Waves crashing, lyrics -  'riptide'.

The audience sees a woman's hands, suggested that she is lying on the floor and being dragged away. Suggested that it was suicide or perhaps meant to, with a plug and it looks like a bathroom floor. Lyrics 'dark side', as she is pulled away into the dark.
Next, we see the flashing 'left' text and a man holding scissors in his left hand cutting an aloe vera plant (connotations of healing).

We then see the woman again and she has smeared lipstick. Ironic lyrics, 'you gone and sang the words wrong' the lyrics on the screen 'you gone and sank the worlds wolf', shows she might be scared, a victim.

We then see the film, we saw previously, starting to play on the T.V.

Lyrics - 'I just wanna, I just wanna know'.
What the audience sees are tarot cards usually used to predict one's future.

The Fool - Joyful beginning.Eight of Swords - Trapped (could link to previous scene, of the woman tied up).
The Moon - Confusion and uncertainty.
The Hanged Man - Sacrifices are needed to move on.
This suggests the song could connote about the artist's break-up.

Lyrics - 'If you're gonna, if you're gonna stay'.
A man packing his suitcase. Enigma code - where is he going?Lyrics - 'I just gotta, I just gotta know'.Someone using books and writing notes, finding information.

We then see a man looking through binoculars looking over to the woman, the video moves we see men looking trough a camera and filming her, then another with a gun pointing at her. The woman is being objectified and becoming vulnerable.
We see woman's legs, she is 'running down to the riptide'.

Lyrics - 'taken away to the darkside'.
It looks like the woman is being hypnotised, the visuals/ligthing is dark and purple with conventions of horror, perhaps an intertextual reference to Suspiria.
The audience then sees a man grabbing a lime out of a tree (connotations of bitterness) with his left hand, flashing text 'left'. Lyrics - 'left hand man'.

Lyrics are wrong again, but the woman looks more scared and her make-up is even more smudged from crying. The audience may fear for her. 
Lyrics - 'running down to the riptide'.
We see a woman walking in the dark with a shot of her feet in high heels (intertextual reference to Suspiria), and then crashing waves.

We then see people playing with an ouiji board - conventions of horror - same lighting as before, referencing Suspiria. We then see a woman with her eyes rolled back, perhaps 'possessed'.

We then see a left hand again, but he is holding a gun with a red background connoting danger, 'left' flashing.

We see the woman again, she is holding her neck, dripping with blood. The woman has been a victim and is distressed.

Then we sse a woman 'running down to' the beach, crashing waves, 'riptide'.

Lyrics - 'taken down to the darkside'.
We see a woman's feet and she is being dragged from under the bed to the 'darkside', intertextual reference to Suspiria, such as lighting and horror conventions.
Suspiria is a surrealist horror film from the 70s.

Throughout the video we see disjointed cuts, no continuity, without a very clear narrative making it postmodern.

'Left' then flashes on the screen, and it shows a woman's hand holding a knife and stabs her left hand, making it appaear sureal.Then, we see the woman singing again, with smudged make-up, holding her neck with her left hand. Singing the wrong lyrics, showing that she is still scared. However the scenes with her singing are jumbled up as previously her eye make-up wasn't smudged, making it a postmodern music video with a broken narrative.

Goodwin - music videos - illustrative.

Representation of women

• Women are represented to be sexualised and vulnerable, in the videos we only see women being tortured such as the dental brace, tied up by a tree, dragged to the 'darkside' and cut neck. We see them being sexualised from the start such as the woman pulling down her swimming costume, only seeing women's legs and men, even the audience, spying on women.

The symbolism of the mise-en-scene of the rope and the dental brace

• The rope is a symbol for being trapped, the setting of the woman being tied up in the woods by a tree, follows the generic conventions of horror. The dental brace is a symbol of fear, we see the woman having a scared expression, she is vulnerable.

The position of the audience

• The position of the audience is a witness to the scenes, in one scene the position changes when it appears that we are spying on a woman standing on the balcony.

The link between all the women

• All the women are objectified or tortured in some way, in the scene with ouiji board, perhaps it's all the women in the video.

The message and construction of women and the hegemonic expectations that is reinforced

• The hegemonic expectations of women, which the video reinforces is the ideology of women being weak and objectified, however it is left to the audience's interpretation of whether the video is raising awareness or creating this message.

Postmodernism

• The music video uses a range of images associated to the genre of horror, with symbolic images of violence and sexuality.
• The video uses a range of mixed visuals that are interesting to the audeince but can also creates enigma codes.
• It breaks the rules of narrative and uses intertextuality to other media texts such as Suspiria.