History of the music promo

History of the music promo

 

The Beatles- A Hard Days night 1964

 

This music promo was really the first music promo. It originally established the ideas of montage as well as showing the band. This established the idea of music promos.

 

Bob Dylan- Subterranean Homesick Blues

 

This music promo is very unique as it is all in one shot. This establishes the one-shot promo. This is against standard conventions that other promos created.

Top of the Pops 1964-2006 

This TV show established a base for music promo based TV. This developed a need for promos to be created. This also established different camera shots to be used within promos as well as faster paced editing.

The Beatles- Strawberry Fields Forever 1967

 

This promo is a landmark in visual and post production editing as many new effects where used, this is mainly where the use of CGI started.

 

The Monkees- A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You 1967

 

This promo established the use of comedy in promos. It also created a sense of surrealism as some unrealistic moments where used, jump shots were also used here.

 

Queen-Bohemian Rhapsody 1975

 

 

This was technologically not a landmark promo. However, it was the first promo that was given out for free to people and companies to use.

 

David Bowie- Ashes To Ashes 1980

 

This is once again not a technological landmark, but it was the most expensive promo made so far. It also implemented the use of zooms.

 

Devo- Whip It 1980

 

This was the first promo to implement a narrative into it, this is now commonplace in many modern promos.

 

MTV 1981-Present

 

MTV was created in 1981 and still runs today, this created a need for even more music promos as well as playing music 24/7.

 

Duran Duran- Rio 1983

 

This promo had a huge budget if £1 million. This is now the most expensive promo. It also implemented the new idea of cross cuts and multiscreen edits.

 

Micheal Jackson- Thriller 1983

 

This promo was the first to feature a very strong narrative based promo. It was also made to entertain more than the others as there was also dancing in it. It is literally a short movie.

 

Aerosmith/ Run DMC- Walk This Way 1986

 

This is a landmark promo for producing and showing new types of music. This is because it broke the only white musician rule on MTV as well as bringing rap music into mainstream.

 

Madonna- Like A Prayer 1989

 

Here, we start getting new content into promos. In this one, religion is represented in different ways as well as showing links to it in the music industry.

 

 

 

 

 

Intertextuality, John Stuart's and Julie Kristeva's theories

Intertextuality between red hot chilli peppers (californification) and video games

Red Hot Chilli Peppers-Californification

The whole of the californification music promo is a direct intertextual link to video games, throughout the whole video; there are many references to different games. For example, when there is the car on the bridge, it resembles one of the cars from GTA 3. This is a direct reference to the game as it is the same car, and same decal design. This is not the only part that references video games as there is a section where one of the characters is running through a street. During this run, there is a part on screen that shows points, this once again references video games where you get points.

 

There is also a tomb raider intertextual link as when one of the band members gets knocked into the air, he does a very similar pose to what Lara Croft does during the tomb raider games. The whole music promo is also animated to look like a video game where there is the live performance factor in the left hand top of screen. This shows us that it is also video game influenced whilst also having a live performance that is in a music promo.

  We can see the two images here are more or less the same, lara croft and the character in the promo are using the same pose or similar pose.

 

 

 

here, we can see the Banshee car from GTA 3 is used, another example of intertextuality

here, we can see anoterh intertextual reference. The characters in the promo are on a dragonfly, and in the Spyro the dragon games series, one of your friends is also a dragonfly.

In these shots, we can also see intertextuality, For example, there is a reference to running games similar to temple run (this promo was released before temple run), but this is a reference to a game that is not temple run but alos contains the same principle of running and jumping. We can also see they used a sterotypical loading screen, this is anotehr reference as it is often used in many video games, with a similar loading bar.

Bring Me The Horizon-Sleepwalking Analysis

Bring Me The Horizon-Sleepwalking analysis

The mise-en-scene of this promo alternates between a few areas. One of these areas is an outdoor snowy area and another is similar to a party room. These two areas contradict each other within this promo as the outdoor area is cold, abandoned and alternating between bright and dark lighting, it is also occasionally red, this represents the danger of the cold weather. Whereas, the party room is full of people and is also warm, as connoted by the band members and party goers who are wearing T-shirts. This is a conventional mise-en-scene for a music promo as it is a likely scenario of where a performance would be, this gives us the feeling that we are actually at the performance. These two mise-en-scenes juxtapose each other. The costume in the party room is also conventional in music promos as it is normal clothing and something we would normally wear in day to day life; this helps us relate to the band members. Whereas, the costume of the girl who is outside, is a jacket which is unconventional for a promo but is conventional for the mise-en-scene she is placed in (outside in a frozen area). Another way that the party rooms mise-en-scene is conventional is because of the instruments being used by the band, all the instruments they use (guitar, bass, drums and a synthophone/keyboard)  are also conventional for metal/rock music that use electro elements.

 

The cinematography is also both conventional and unconventional, as with the mise-en-scene. This is once again juxtaposed by the two different areas used. For example, the cinematography is conventional in the party room as mid shots and close ups are used. These show the band members all playing together as well as each band member being in their own shot occasionally. Long shots are also used in the party room to show the party goers and the band being together, this is also conventional as it shows the band with their audience around them, as with many other music promos, moving shots are also present here, moving around the band. Then, the cinematography in the outdoor area is different again as mainly long shots and close ups with very few mid shot. This is unconventional as there are very few midshots of the girl. This is used so it fits in with the narrative of her story.

Editing is also used within this promo. It is often used to show the contrast between light and dark as when it is dark, the editing is slower, whereas, when it is lighter it is faster in pace. This is supposed to show the light in two different aspects, bright as unrelenting and strong, darkness as slow and frightening. Editing is also used through post production effects a little. One major post production effect that can be seen is during the party room scene when a lens glare is evident at the bottom of the scene; this is once again supposed to represent the light/dark contrast as said before. There is also some slow motion in the promo at one point when the girl is looking at the red fire, this is supposed to bring out her emotions and show her facial expressions. There are also some amplified light effects on there to show the light in a stronger way. There is also some reverse shots in tehre which show action ahppening backwards, this represents how the girl is slowly going slighlty crazy with a lack of attention from other people.

 

There is also a slight narrative within this promo. The narrative is how the girl in the promo has been abandoned and that people ignore her and she feels better in her dreams. This is seen when the shots switch between the party room and her in the snow, the girl in the snow represents her being abandoned and the party room represents how she was not invited and was ignored. It then starts with the idea of dreams where she is having a dream about running away from society and being on her own, this is also in the snowy weather and darkness. This represents the idea of people who seem to be neglected by society run away and are never seen again, as well as going slighlty insane. The lyrics also relate back to this narrative of dreams as teh sinegr keeps saying for her to "wake up" this could be from the dreams or from the slight insanity that she has. Moving onto the purpose, it could be said that this promo is dual purpose as it informs us about how people feel when they are socially neglected but also it is to entertain as it shows the band performance.

Bring Me The Horizon-Sleepwalking (Electro rock/metal/ metalcore) 

 

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The juxtaposition between the two mise-en-scenes

 

The contrast of light and dark, showing the divide  between them, the shots are edited between these

                                                                   The juxtaposition of the two narratives

 

Conventions of a music promo

Conventions of a music promo

Conventions of a music video can be seen as different for each genre of music. This means there are many different conventions for a music video. For example, pop music would be seen to include interesting clothing as well as very few instruments in the promo. The editing of a pop video is generally at a medium pace as the music is not to fast or too slow, where as a rap promo may have people in more revealing clothes as well as faster editing to fit the fast lyrics. This once again changes when we enter into the genre of rock and metal, these promos will either be generally very fast paced or slower depending on the songs topic. The mise-en-scene will also alternate with the genre, for example, pop music could be seen as a lighter genre of music, thus have a mise-en-scene with good lighting, whereas a metal song may have a dark or even straight black mise-en-scene with little lighting, showing the aggression of the music. You would also expected different props and clothing used within these genres, for example, pop having lighter, colourful clothing whereas rock may have darker or even black clothing. Very few props may be used within a pop promo, such as just a microphone, but a rock promo would have guitars, drums, bass guitars and microphones. Once again, changing with the genre of music. You would also expect the shots to be different that are taken by the genre. A pop song would have many long shots and mid shots of the singer/band as it shows them well, but a rock or metal song would have more close ups on certain aspects in the video, such as close ups on the guitars being played, this generally alternates between mid-shots showing the band.

Analysis of a promo (Bring Me The Horizon-Pray for Plagues (Death Metal/ Extreme Metal)

Things to expect in this genre of music promo-Black clothing and mise-en-scene, shows aggression to fit the genre. Occasional red, representing blood. A Strange or frightening narrative or images.

Here, is a shot that has many conventions of this genre of music in a promo, for example, we have a black, no lighting, mise-en-scene, this represents the aggression of the music as well as showing the feeligns of the singer here, The red on his hand also represents blood, this once again is sterotypical of this genre as it once again represents blood and death. This is also a conventional shot as it shows actions of the band members as well as what they look like.

Here, we can see one of the guitarists playing whilst also head banging, another stereotype of this genre, we can also clearly see that he is wearing a black shirt, this also continues the representation of darkness and violence within this genre of music. The editing of this shot is also in between two others and we see it very briefly, showing the pace and heaviness of the music as well as showing the music as being fast and violent as the editing is, as well as unrelenting. This shot, being a mid shot also is conventional in music promos as it show as band member playing an instrument, this is apparent in almost all promos that have a instrument in it.

This is another shot that shows conventions of this genre of music promo. This is a close up of someone who seems to have no facial features, this is seen as a distressing and strange image as well as horrifying. This once again matches the conventions of this kind of music promo to this genre. This is also a close up of this character. This is conventional in promos as it shows the band member or characters emotions, or in this case, lack of.

Another conventional shot of this type of music promo.  It shows the singer having many tattoos, this is conventional of this type of music as well as being conventional in rock and metal songs as many shots show off a person’s tattoos within the promo. These tattoos are red, also representing blood and violence again. This is also a medium close up of the singer which are often used within conventional promos as they show actions as well as the band members actions.

This shot also is conventional of this type of promo as it shows what seems to be an abandoned house, another image we would find horrifying and distressing. This is also conventional within a music promo what has a narrative in it as it shows a overall mise-en-scene of the area it is set in.

This Promo-Bring Me the Horizon-Pray for Plagues (contains strong language and themes of violent lyrics)

What is a music promo, why do we make them, where they can be viewed and how technology impacts them

What is a music promo

A music promo is a music video that shows the band as well as advertising the band. There is also usually different things that are standard within a music promo. some things that are in a music promo are advertising something, such as the bands songs or the band themselves. Sometimes a short story is also in a music promo, this is usualy from a concept album (an album that tells a story) and teh video show sthat story. A music promo is also sometimes a catalogue of refernce for the band members that introduces them to the viewer. Product placement is also used within a music promo to advertise certain products, also the artist or band generaly get paid for using these products.

 

Advertising a song/band:- No Fair Fights- Sleep (Post-hardcore/Metal), this advertises the bands album as seen at the end of the video.

 

Short film:-Alesana- The Thespian (Post-Hardcore/Metal), this is a very good example of a short story, especially at the start as it tells us about tellign us a story and then goes onto what happend and the main characters regret of a character dying and then goes on to rivalry and revenge as well as showing insanity.

 

 

Catalouge of reference:-S club 7- S club party (Pop), this introduces the members of the band.

 

 

Why make a music promo?

To entertain:- Micheal Jackson-Smooth Criminal (pop)

To Inform:-Thirty Seconds To Mars-This Is Wars (alternative rock)

To Advertise:-We Will Rock You- Multiple Artists (pop rock)

Campaign:-USA for Africa-We Are The World (pop/gospel)

To Shock:-Suicide Silence-You Only Live Once (Deathcore/Death Metal)(contains strong language and violence)

Where viewed

Music promos can be viewed in many different places in the modern world. They can be viewed on most mobile devices and at home on devices such as computers and games consoles. This allows them to be viewed in many places. This has also made it so they rise on popularity.

Places they can be watched

Laptops/computer

 

Tablets

Phones

iPods etc.

Games consoles

TV

Cinema

 Technology impact on music promos

Technology has impacted hugely on music promos as you could only really watch live music performed at a music hall but now you can view the promo for a music video almost anywhere, this has impacted the exhibition as almost anyone can watch them and also be viewed almost anywhere in the world as long as there is internet. They have also increased in popularity thanks to the release of mobile internet.