A2 MEDIA – Music Video

Case Study – Riptide

Revision Booklet

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Artist – Vance JoyDirectors – Dimitri Basil and Laura GorunMusic Company – Atlantic (subsidiary of Warner)

Released – May 2013 (worldwide)

Genre – Indie Folk/Indie Pop

Definition

Indie Folk/Pop – styles of music which combines traditional folk music and traditional instrumentation (acoustic guitars, ukuleles, banjos etc.), with contemporary recording techniques and styles.

The term ‘Indie’ often refers to ‘Independent’ artists, bands and record labels, as opposed to the major record companies. Some artists adopt the style of ‘Indie’, but are connected to major labels.

Brief biographical details

Vance Joy is an Australian music artist (real name, James Keogh)

Riptide was his debut single

Dimitri Basil and Laura Gorun have produced a number of music videos for Indie artists, in a similar visual style

To date the music video has in excess of 280 million views on YouTube

Media Language

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ACTIVITY

Identify FIVE memorable images/scenes from the music video and how aspects of media language have been used (Consider signs/symbols, colour, costume, props, use of camera, editing etc.).

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Media Language

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Linked to Narrative – use of profound imagery related to song lyrics.

ACTIVITY

Identify which camera movement and camera shots are most used within the music video – and why? (e.g. long shot, mid shot, close up, pan, track, tilt etc.)

Media Language

Identify examples of the following:

Polysemy (where an image might have more than one possible meaning)

Enigma codes (where a sense of mystery or anticipation may occur)

Anchorage (where specific images or words are used to ‘pin down’ meaning)

Representation

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ACTIVITY

Which key areas of representation stand out within the music video?

Representation of Women

Women predominantly represented as a ‘watched’ object

Representation of isolated sections of women’s bodies (e.g. hands, legs, viewed from behind)

Women as passive victims

A woman singing in various states of abuse

QUESTIONHow might the above examples add potential meaning to the video? You may wish to consider particular theorists, and references to film genres.

Feminism

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The various representations of women (and men) may fit into a number of feminist theories

Issues to consider:

bell Hooks

Do you feel that the music video objectifies women in a particular way?

How might a patriarchal society be represented within the music video?

Do you feel that the music video is part of the struggle to end sexist patriarchal oppression or is part of the ongoing oppression? (this is fundamental to Hooks’ theories)

Liesbet Van Zoonen

How might women in the music video be represented according to their physical shape and appearance?

Do the images of women within the music video relate to particular stereotypical norms?

Laura Mulvey

How might Mulvey’s theory of the Male Gaze conform to the music video? Consider the notion of ‘scopophilia’ (the ‘pleasure of looking’) within the music video.

How might the notion of male desire/control be included within the music video?

Intertextuality

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The music video contains references to other media texts, such as films, film directors and actors.

These include:

Allusions to the horror and thriller film genres

The film Midnight Cowboy (“There’s this movie that I think you'll likeThis guy decides to quit his job and heads to New York CityThis cowboy's running from himself”)

The film star, Michelle Pfeiffer (“I swear she's destined for the screenClosest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you've ever seen”)

The use of a film billing block in the opening shot, referencing information found on a film poster or DVD cover

Similar costume and character pose from the British horror film, The Wicker Man

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The style of film director, Wes Anderson (Pastiche)

The style of film editing of Sergei Eisenstein (see ‘Editing’)

The surreal film style of Luis Bunel and Salvador Dali (see ‘Editing’)

The film style of experimental film director, Lev Kuleshov (see ‘Editing’)

QUESTION

Why do you feel Dimitri Basil and Laura Gorun have included intertextual references within the music video?

Can you identify any other intertextual references contained within the music video for Riptide?

Editing

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The generic style of music video editing tends towards quick cuts; this is done to maximise the amount of information in the running time of the song (the average length of a pop song tends to be around three and a half minutes, and the length of an edit tends to be around one to two seconds per shot (sometimes less to match the speed of the music).

This style is familiar to the medium of advertising, and has become known as the ‘MTV style’ when occurring in music videos (named after the iconic music video channel when it first appeared in the early 1980s.

There are three distinct editing techniques used within Riptide which references experimental cinema:

1 Montage – wide range of contrasting shots juxtaposed against one another, often through the use of jump cuts. The early work of French film-maker, Jean-Luc Godard may be an intertextual reference here, along with the surrealists, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, in their 1929 film, Un Chien Andalou (see the infamous ‘eye-slitting’ opening scene in the Riptide folder on Moodle)

2 Intellectual Montage – associated with the Russian film-maker, Sergei Eisenstein, who would often include a collision of images in order to generate new meanings. In the case of Riptide, it could be used to explain the cut of

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two people turning to the camera, with the next cut being some dollar bills (“All my friends are turning green”), which might visually depict ‘envy’.

There is an informative short video in the Riptide folder on Moodle regarding the five different forms of Montage editing according to Eisenstein, including Intellectual Montage

3 The Kuleshov Effect – named after the Russian experimental film-maker, Lev Kuleshov, and his experiment in editing in the 1920s. There is some

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similarity with Eisenstein’s Intellectual Montage of juxtaposing two unrelated images to come up with a potential third meaning.

In this experiment, Kuleshov presented the audience with the same image of a man looking at the camera six times, but intercutting a different image in between – a bowl of soup (to potentially represent ‘hunger’), a child in an open coffin (to potentially represent ‘grief’) and a reclining woman (to potentially represent ‘desire’), each time allowing the audience to interpret the three different cuts accordingly.

Again, the film version of the experiment can be found in the Riptide folder on Moodle.

Basil and Gorun have used this technique to some extent throughout the music video to allow the audience to make visual connectives of ‘meaning’ to the lyrics.

Narrative

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QUESTION

Is there a sense of narrative structure within the music video? Or is it just a jumble of unconnected visuals which literally reflect the lyrics?

Can you identify a possible connection to Todorov’s narrative structure theory of Equilibrium, Disruption, New Equilibrium?

It could be argued that Riptide subverts and challenges standard music video conventions, by presenting a concept-based narrative and representation (see Andrew Goodwin’s music video theory)

Dimitri Basil and Lorna Gorun

There are other examples of Basil and Gorun’s work in the Riptide folder on Moodle, where their visual techniques and style are very evident. They have worked with a range of independent artists, alongside the likes of Kylie Minogue and Kings of Leon.

Gorun also plays the role of the woman who keeps getting the words wrong in the music video

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