Somebody That I Used To Know Lyrics Meaning

Gotye Lyrics Meaning

Purpose of music video essay

Intro

Since the 1970’s, the medium of music has been dominated by the ever rising takeover of the music video. A music video gives the artist an excuse to promote their music on the television, with visuals matching the tone of the song and providing a story to go along with the lyrics. In this essay, I will be discussing the up rise of this medium, along with new innovations that give the audience more accessibility to their favourite artists. I will also be discussing the marketing and promotion of said artists and why I think they are so popular.

Promotion Of Artist’s

A positive of making a music video is promotion for the artists and the directors, using the band’s name on something like a bass drum will let people know who the band are and then get more of a following through this self-promotion. An example of this would be The Hive’s song ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’, in the video, they printed their band name on to the front of the bass drum, as well as printing the name on the straps of the guitars, it is very subtle but noticeable at the same time.

A director will also promote himself by designing a music video that people will instantly recognise, that is unique, and will get stuck in the viewer’s head, and example of a director is Jack White, he directed the White Stripes song ‘Fell In Love With A Girl’, this video was remembered for being short, and using techniques barely even used back then, he recreated an entire scene using Lego stop motion animation, this made this video unique and made people remember Jack White’s name because of this video, this is the director promoting himself in one of his client’s videos. Another example would be the music video to the Beastie Boys' song 'Sabotage' which was directed by Spike Jonze.

Producers’ Strategies

The majority of music videos and music lyrics nower-days refer to Sex and Sex appeal, Major band labels found that men are more attracted to a music video featuring a young female or male on screen sing provocative lyrics, and example of this would be Britney Spears’ song ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’, I mean, even the title of the song is provocative enough. Another aspect of a music video that people are attracted to is flashy effects, a video with cool stunts and explosions are more likely to grab someone’s attention, like Michael and Janet Jackson’s song ‘Scream’ which is still the most expensive music video in the world. Another example of a music video with flashy effects would be the Gorillaz song, 'Feel Good Inc' Which won the MTv award for visual effects in 2005, it features a contrast of bright and colourful animation with real time footage.
 

With the invention of the World Wide Web and evolving into Web 2.0, the Internet has become a new and fast way of watching music videos on demand; this was an innovation as now fans can watch their favourite band or artist whenever they want. This is also a benefit for Independent artists as it is harder to get their work noticed and it is usually the case big record labels will not even give them a chance, making your video go viral will get you noticed.

Extending Artists And Record Labels Income

One of the main reasons a record label will not give independent artists a chance is because it is like taking a gamble, if the new artist doesn’t sell well then the label is losing money. This is the same for radio stations; they will not play an unpopular song because they will be losing money, they're basically shit scared to tiptoe outside the proverbial box so it becomes a cesspool of the same songs played over and over again every day. The difference between a major record’s and an independent record label is that the budget for the independent label is significantly lower than a major label, and example of a major label music video would be Janet and Michael Jackson’s song scream, which is still the most expensive music video ever made. With websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, it has become easier for independent artists to get the funding needed to make a decent music video, fans of the band will donate small amount to help them get to their target budget and in return, they receive perks for their donations, ranging depending how much they contribute. This has also made it easier for independent artists to get noticed by big labels.

Extension Of Various Media Outlets                           

There are many media outlets that can be implemented into music video, examples of these would be the internet, with websites like YouTube that give an infinite source of music video for audiences to watch for free, TV with channels like MTV and VH1 for all ages. Radio with stations like Kiss Fm and Heart, Movies are another source, the film Skyfall’s theme was accompanied with an official lyric video by singer Adele. Videogames are also a media source, an example would be the game Final Fantasy 13 which had singer Leona Lewis singing all of the songs in the soundtrack, when the Original Sound Track (OST) was released, it was credited to Leona and it was produced as one of her albums.

Synergistic Marketing

Sometimes, a music production company will give permission to another distributor to sell a product with the face of one of their talents on it, if the talent is very popular, then it is likely to sell very well in retail, this is a gamble for manufacturers as they have to decide whether the talent will make them a lot of money. It will benefit the producer greatly if it does succeed because it is giving the talent advertising, making the audience more incline to check out their work. An example of this is the marketing for the band Queen, the record producer paid retail manufacturers to print thier logo on t-shirts mugs and posters to sell to the fans, the pretty much become a walking advertisment for the band. They also use the music in the TV series, Flash Gordon, this went on to be sold as the flash gordon album by Queen.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel that music videos have greatly benefitted the listening experience since their premiere over thirty years ago, there will always be ever changing mediums that will continue to help and hinder the viewing experience of music in the late future.

Styles And Conventions And Techniques In Music Production

There are eight different types of Styles and Conventions in music production, these include:

Popular Music Genre
In-Concert and 'as live' footage
Narrative and interpretive
Surrealist/absurdist
Impressionist
Influence Of Commercial
Intertexual
Animation

Popular Music Genre

Most music videos will contain items assoiated and that stereotypically reflect the band or genre's image, for example a rock band may have guys with long hair head banging to the music. Or a Pop song may have images of alcohol or people partying to go with the narrative. Like the Foo Fighters song, Best Of You's music video has powerful imagery to go with powerful vocals.

Concert And 'As Live Footage'

Sometimes, a music video will feature a live performace muted infront of a recorded track, sometimes adding cuts of naratives or audiences reactions to the mix as well. An example genre that use this would be mainly rock and pop, like Bon Jovi's song, It's My Life, which features a boy rushing to a Bon Jovi concert and shots of them playing 'Live'

Narrative And Interperative

A narrative and interperative music video is one that follows a story as well as there being a song, sometimes the lyrics contradict what is going on in the video, but some times the video will follows the lyrics exactly, and example of this is Eminem's song Love The Way You Lie Featuring Rihanna.

Surrealist/Absurdist

A Surreal music video typically means that it doesnt make sense or it is unrealistic to real life, a good example of this is foo fighters song, Everlong.

Impressionist

An Impressionist music video will use artistic shots and emotional lyrics, sometimes the shots will match up to the lyrics. But this is used to make the audience feel a certain way about the imagery and leave an impression on them, an example of this would be Thirty Seconds To Mars' song The Kill, which uses emotional lyrics and surrealistic imagery to create an artistic performance.

Influence Of Commercial

A music video with Influence Of Commercial will use a certain lifestyle and glamorise it in the music video,an example would be Bruno Mar's song Billionaire, which glamorises the billionaire lifestyle but also emphasyis through context the struggles of being an unknown artist.

Intertextual

Intertextual also means different types of a music video, I will list examples for each;

• Synergy
• Allusion
• Pastiche
• Parody
• Homage
• Reference

Synergistic music videos are one that will promote a certain product or film. Nickelback's Hero promotes the Sam Raimi directed Spiderman Film.

Allusion music videos are ones where the story is referencing something but is not what it seems to be an example of this would be Taylor Swift's Love Story (I'm so sorry Sean and Ellie, I probably hate this song more than you do)

A pastiche is a homage to a film or historical event, an example of this would be Queen's Radio Gaga, which splices footage of the film Metropolis into the music video

A Parody completely, but respectfully, makes fun of a different musical piece or film or artist, an example of this is (The King Of Parody) Weird Al Yankovic's I love rocky road, which is a parody of Joan Jett's I love rock and roll.

Animation

An animated music video is one that is completely made up of catoon drawings animated. An example of an animated music video would be Daft Punk's One More Time.

Lip Snycing And Miming

Sometimes a music video producer will have the talent mime to the song during the video, also known as lip snycing. This will make the fans think that he was actually singing it during the filming of the video, an example of this is Lorde's song 'Royals'.

Editing

Sometimes a music video will utilise cool special effects like explosions or lasers or other editing techniques to emphasise the uniqueness of the music video, an example of this would be The White Stripes song 'Fell In Love With A Girl' which won the 2002 MTv music award for special effects in a music video.

Cutting To The Beat/ Multi Image Effect

A Music video can have cutting that matches the tempo of the song, this makes the sound seem stronger in the video, they also use an effect where multiple shots of the different or the same set will appear on screen at the same time, an example of this is Blink 182's song Always.

Production Effects/Chroma Key

A music video can use an effect where they film the talent infront of a green wall or a sheet and the the editor can cut out the talent and make it look like they are somewhere else in the world, this is using a green screen. To do this without using a green screen, the editor can intricatly cut out the talent from one scene and place them in another without the use of a screen, this is call chroma key. An example of this is the PERFECTLY created song 'Bound 2' By Kanye West and featuring Kim Kardashian.

(Obligatory)

Also this masterpiece

Camera Angles, Movement And Shot Types

Sometimes they use technical camera movements and angles in music videos to establish a shot and also for the director to show off his creative flair through the medium of a music video. An example of this is R.E.M's song 'Everybody Hurts' which won the MTv's VMA's Best Cinematography award in 1994.

Mise En Scene

A music video producer also needs to set a scene for the audience so that they get the idea of what is going on in the scene, also known as Mise en scene. They need appealing visuals to give the fans an idea of what the story is suppost to be. An example of this would be Outkast's song 'Hey Ya', the director wanted to give the idea of a fun and jumpy stage show with thousands of fans, it also won the MTv's VMA award for best art direction in 2004.

Final Music Video

Pre Production Work

Timeline

 

 

 

Music Video Production

Step 1: Choose Your Track

For my music video, I made a shortlist of five songs to choose from and I decided out of these five:
Queen - Killer Queen
The Beatles - Hey Jude
Queen - Radio Gaga
Daft Punk - One More Time
Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know

I have decided to use Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know as it seems the most fit for my idea. It will be a surrealist video which follows a man who goes to work, and is taken hostage but it is all in reverse, whilst all of the time he is singing the lyrics, whilst he bikes to work, and when he is shaving and it ends with him turning the light off and jumping back into bed.

Step 2: Analysing Your Track

I feel like the song fits well with a surrealist music video as the music itself seems to have a surrealistic sound to it with obscure instruments playing in the background, also it seems that a video like that would fit well with the artists image. The idea of the song is finding out that someone who you thought was a perfect person, turns out to be your allusions of what you want them to be from first appearance, and when you get to know them, you find out that they aren't who you thought they were and they were 'Somebody that they used to know', the female singer, Kimbra, says she "think of all the times you screwed me over" connoting that he treated her badly after finding out that she wasn't who she thought he was, which in turn changed her opinion on him, from her perspective he was somebody that she used to know because she thought he was this allusion of a perfect person. As I said before, the artist has a very surreal view in his songs, in the music video, they're painted to blend into the background, connoting that they're slowly fading away from each other. The song plays at 68 BPM (Beats Per Minute) which isn't fast, but it isn't slow, it goes at a steady beat, maintaining this beat for the whole song. The song is 4 minutes and 3 seconds, which is three seconds over the limit, but excluding the pauses at the beggining and the end of the video, it just goes under 4 minutes.

Step 3: Researching The Artist- Image And Representation

in the song, they're not wearing any clothing, as I said before, they're painted to blend into the background. In the video, they are wearing a range of different makeups to look like the painted wall behind them, this gives a good surreal effect because they almost look like a floating air of eyes and teeth. The other existing videos that I could find were all of the same pace. I couldn't find any other music videos made by Gotye.

To do a tracking effect where it is always a closeup on their face, I will need o spend some money making this http://cinematography-howto.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-lightweight-body-mount-rig-for-filming-unique-front-ots-shots-0146700/
another thing I would need to do is get the actor to learn the song backwards so that when it is reversed back, they lip sync perfectly.

Step 4: Planning Your Video

My idea would be a man, turns on his bedroom light, gets out of bed, shaves and then gets on his bike and goes to work, it will all be one take, when he gets to work, his ex is there and she will lip sync the part sang by Kimbra, he will keep walking down the corridors and is goes into a room, where he sits at a computer and starts typing, two people with guns come in and put a bag over his head, he is taken to an abandoned building, the bag is taken off and then put back on again, he gets kicked to the ground out of frame, and the man shoots down on the ground, once I have filmed this in one take, I will reverse the footage and the track.