Codes and conventions of funk music videos using Michael Jackson's ''Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough'' as an example.
The objective of funk music videos are to encourage the audience to dance along with the music, they attempt to accomplish this using many varied methods. More often than not, the video will feature either a long dance sequence or a montage of clips featuring dance sequences. In the case of Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough, the entire video is of Michael dancing without cuts. Michael attempts to captivate viewers by incorporating a stylised type of dance which is now an iconic dance routine. Special effects are also utilised in many funk videos. The objective with their addition is to provoke a sense of wonder and enjoyment from its audience. Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough features a moment in which 3 versions of Michael Jackson are dancing in sync. Another similarity between funk videos are the outlandish locations and settings they take place in. This, again, is aimed to create an overwhelming sensation, provoking one to dance along or at the very least, respond to the music video in some positive way. Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough is a prime of example of this. The ridiculous and rather psychedelic settings are totally of the time and turn the music video into an experience of its own.
The genre for our project will be Funk. The song will be 'Adrienne and Adrianne' by the music group Vulfpeck. We have chosen this song for numerous reasons. Firstly, being we believe we can attach a theme to the music well as the song is lenient and flexible to tell a story. The song also doesn't contain lyrics which is what we had intended for our video. Having no lyrics means we can express our video further as we are not confined to the lyrics. Lyrics can tell a story easily and usually aren't subtle, whereas an instrumental can be analysed by the audience and the can all perceive a different image.
We had numerous other songs that were in consideration, All of whom were by 'Vulfpeck'. A few examples are:
The reason we didn't use these songs in particular is because we believed our pick matched the image and story we want to show the audience. These songs however, follow a similar structure and could possibly have worked as a back up song, incase our pick wasn't as effective as we hoped.
Funk music videos can be varied in numerous ways. Bands like Vulfpeck usually remain in one location and play the music, some like Ratatat are cinematic and show the music through colours and light shows. This creates a visual experience for the audience, making for a more memorable video as opposed to a normally shot video with a narrative. As a response, the audience watching the video won't be likely to forget it anytime soon after watching it.
Indie
Indie music usually follows the theme of 'Relating to' and 'Love'. The themes and tones of the video are normally ones that cater to the indie target audience, which usually consists of teenagers and young adults. This helps to create a piece that fans of the genre can relate too, strengthening their loyalty to the band. In the case of Foals - Inhaler, they've decided to portray a group of teens/young adults engaging in their hobbies i.e dancing and skateboarding. This, placed with performance shots can unify the bond between fan base and target audience as the band then become another group of people that are engaging in a hobby, making them far more relatable to the audience.
Rock/Post-Rock
Rock music, particularly american bands like to show off the band by making the video about them as a band, than about an actor/character with a story. In most videos, the video is the band at a festival/on stage performing and getting increasingly more into their performance towards the end. For example, Fallout boy - Thanks for the memories. The addition of the monkeys and the vibrant settings sells them as a band who know how to mess around and have fun. This aids to attract and audience of those who claim to share those traits.
Electronica
Electronica is a form of indie music that focuses on the emotions of a song and creative ways to portray it. Similar to indie videos, love is usually a common theme as well as sadness. Electronica, as it is not typically a huge genre in the industry and is a Sub-genre, this videos seem to be more creative in the portrayal of the story and the effectiveness of conveying their message. The video can also just be about the lighting and filming of special effects and filters to create a portrayal of the music in a physical form. ''Done Wrong'' creates an almost psychedelic viewing experience, reflecting the tones and nature of the music itself.
Music groups such as 'Pretty Lights' focus on the emotion of music. For their album 'A color map of the sun'. They created videos to visually express what the song was doing and the effect it was creating by the video having colours, distortion and lots of location shots. 'Done Wrong' is an excellent example of this as the video becomes less 'professional' and more shaky, as if the camera was handheld. The shots mostly consisted of long-shots to capture the environment they were in, this was used effectively as the video was made to show the 'beauty' of the album. The variety in mise-en-scene is not atypical of electronica music, as similar to other genres, the story is not entirely clear. GRiZ, an independent producer of Electronica and Electro-funk has almost all his videos performance based. Natural lighting is used, and the video tends to capture the beauty around where he lives, Detroit. His videos follows a similar pattern. Him with people enjoying himself, then at a party/gathering, then lastly a performance by GRiZ himself. The camera angles used are usually low down shots to make the environment look bigger than it is. This creates the sense of the artist being a 'big' musician.
Brit-pop
Brit-pop is a sub-genre of pop which contains British pop music. Brit-pop typically has less extravagant videos than American pop, but follow similar styles of video. Love and story telling are still a key theme in the videos, however, the videos don't always convey a narrative. Some videos deviate from this structure and leave one to interpret the unorthodox themes within the video. Oasis- Wonderwall is an example of this. The video does not follow a narrative, instead, Wonderwall focuses on a montage of performance shots, dancers, a clown puppeteer, violinists and of the band themselves relaxing on a bench. This is done to convey a variety of performances.
