Auteur Theory- Hype Williams

What is the auteur theory?
In 1954, The auteur theory was created by Francois Truffaut and it was intended to show a director's film to reflect the personal creative visions. An example of this is Alfred Hitchcock's movie 'Psycho', as he stars in his film and addresses mental health awareness. Hitchcock's visual was to use a black and white theme but chooses a photo with bold colours to present the good and bad characters.

How can this theory be applied to music videos?
We can apply the theory to music videos as we can easily look for:

• Themes
• Borders
• Colours
• Symbolism
• Storyline
• Quick editing 
• Choreographed dances 

Discuss an auteur in the music video industry.
This theory applies to Hype William's  music videos as we can see themes of pop. The director embeded symbols within his videos to depict the light-hearted genre, an example of these repeated symbols are the bright eye-popping colours and borders to focus on the artist. William's also admires womens' assets by using a low angled shot and close ups, he utilises a green-screen to illustrate the setting the song may relate to. One of Hype William's videos is Beyonce's 'Check on it' where he includes these key elements of pop.
There's a quick cross- cut between these two frames on the beat.

Hype William's uses different shades of pink, highlighting the feminine side of the video. However he sticks with the bright theme by using a bright shade of red which is the equivalent of a masculine colour.

Beyonce's border is a silky material, where as the rapper's border has his face split in two to represent  femininity and wealth verses vanity.

Andrew Goodwin's theory

1) What were his 6 key aspects of music videos?

• A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
• A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
• Genre- related style and iconography present.
• Star image, multiple close-up shots of the main artist or vocalist.
• Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
• Intertexual references to other media texts maybe present.

2) Complete a case that illustrates this using a screen-grab of a video.

Britney Spears 'You Drive Me Crazy' music video includes all the elements from Andrew Goodwin's theory as it has all the dancers which displays typical pop features. There's a relationship between the dance and the upbeat music 

Melissa from 'Sabrina' appears in the music video to show that the video is targeting teenagers.  

There's a close up of her face which shows that the lyrics match her singing.The lyrics 'you drive me crazy' is also portrayed when we see the girl who plays Sabrina and a male companion who we see she has a crush on.

The lyrics 'Tell me that I'm the one you would see' is sung just before 'Sabrina' is with her crush.









The video shows that women wear revealing clothes to attract male attention in order to display rnb/ pop genre music.

Searching for our artist

This term, we have been set a task to produce a music video using any songs as long as we ask for permission from the artist. I have decided to work with Carmen Katema and we were thinking of using our friend Kaitlyn Haggis or my sister Kiana Lanjani to star in our music video. In order for this to happen, we will need to contact them and ask whether they are available to participate. 

Kiana agreed to take part in our music video shown in the text below.

Carmen and I also decided to contact a friend of mine, Alessia in case our original choice for our artist cannot do it.

3 elements of a music video

A performance based music video shows the band or artists mostly performing their song possibly in a gig or audio setting, such as The 1975 'Girls'. 


A narrative based music video tends to follow a storyline throughout the whole video, for example The Killers 'Shot At The Night'. It is about a maid who works at a hotel and feels lonely, but she bumps into a rich man in the hotel. She meets his friends and another lady gives her a pretty dress to wear for the night. She goes out with the rich man and they hang out all night, then she runs back to the hotel as she is late for her job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4YK-DEkvcw



A concept based music video- consists of simple ideas but the video has no relation to the music or lyrics, an example of this is MGMT 'Electric Feel'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmZexg8sxyk#t=16 

Music Video Timeline

A Hard Day's Night:

• The third studio album released 1964, with one side containing songs from their film.
• First Beatles album to be recorded on 4-track tape, allowing for good stereo mixes.

Concert Films:

• A type of documentary film which is an extended live performance or concert by a musician or comedian.
• From 1964 onwards. 

MTV:

• An American programme launched 1981.
• Used to aim at young adults but it's not targeted at adolescents and teenagers.
• The original purpose was to play music videos guided by tv personalities know as 'video jockeys' (announcer).  

Musicals:

• Performances that combine: songs, dialogue, acting and dance.
• Other theatrical forms include opera and dance without dialogue.
• Introduced 1886, The Black Crook was considered the first musical. 

Nickeldeons:

• First indoor space dedicated to showing motion pictures.
• Simple theatres charged 5 cents for admission and flourished from 1905-1915.
• Mechanical musical instrument for example, piano or orchestra.

Scopitone:

• Type of jukebox containing 16mm film component.
• Developed during WW2, colour 16mm film clips with a magnetic soundtrack were designed and shown in a jukebox.  

Soundies:  

• 3 minute musical films.
• Often include short dance sequences.
• 1940s.
• Released on the Panoram, which is a coin-operated film jukebox.

Top Of The Pops:

• British music chart TV programme made by the BBC 1964 and 2006.
• Each weekly programme consisted of performances from popular music artists, with a rundown of that week's single chart.

Youtube: 

• During the 80s and 90s, big for music videos and directors.
• Video sharing website
• Owned by Paypal but now owned by Google (2006)
• People now use it for educational purposes, career starters and tutorials.
  

Britney Spears Reflection

1) What was the task set?
We were asked to film our own version of the first 30 seconds of Britney's music video 'Hit Me Baby One More Time'. We had to watch the music video and list the every shot and how long each lasted for.

2) What process did you go through to complete the task? (Upload a pic of your shotlist for planning evidence)
At the beginning we had to analyse and jot down every move Britney did on a shotlist, then we asked to borrow a camera and the other equipment to begin filming our own parody of it. Georgia, Carmen and I starred in the music video with our teacher Ms Lawson filming. In order to make our version accurate, we needed to rearrange the tables and chair so we could all be seen on camera. We followed every action to the precise amount of seconds and recreated parts of the dance moves to make our version as close to Britney's video as we could. In the end, we completed all of the shots successfully ready to be edited.

3) What did you learn from the experience?
I learnt that it takes a lot of time to re-create a music video accurately as you need to pay attention to the detail of costumes, actions, lighting, set etc. Even editing the video can be quite tricky as you have to make sure all the shots are in the correct order as Britney's music video and the singing is in sync with the person's mouth. During the process of editing, we had to cut shots to 1-2 seconds as we needed to continue the quick pace of the video. It was important for us to feel confident in front of the  camera and recieving a lot of encouragement was very helpful as it made the video come together. Luckily for us, the mise en scene was a school which was easy for us as we filmed in our own.

Favourite Music Video

Ariana Grande's 'Problem' music video is one of my favourites, as it has a lot of colour and various visual effects. This has inspired us to employ some of these effects into our video as this song and our soundtrack are both fast pace. We adored the beauty shots the artist showed as it expresses the girly aspect of the video as both artists 'attempt to get over their ex- boyfriend'.