Research into Diversity-Miss Miller

Research into Diversity

05/09/2014

Vazl

“Why would an artist chose to create a diverse music video?”

Firstly diversity can be seen as making a music video that is rebelling to the standard convections for the music genre. For example a pop video that does not contain voyeuristic images and is filmed in locations that exclude the conventional discothèque.

There are a range of various factors that when combined, create a Music Video diverse.
Possibly the first common factor for such a video would be for the video to stand out from the other videos by not following any of the standard conventions of the genre it belongs to. There is a recent tendency for the use of a sequence of alternative clips In order to make the video stand out as the audience will remember how it did not fit with the music theme or lyrics. Thus uniqueness is achieved, however it does mean that for some artists, this technique might get them out of their comfort zone as sometimes such a video is too confusing for the audience to understand which might put them off and break the relationship that he has built with them. Nevertheless many artists have considered this as an easy way to enter the mainstream charts as more viewers would wish to watch it more than once in order to understand what the video is on about. Some artists that use such as Lady Gaga use this tactic in order to hit the mainstream river and possibly attract niche audiences.

For this type of a music video, there are two main video producers that use the two most famous variations of such a technique.
The first one is called Micheal Gondry. Born in 1963, the French director was famous for manipulating the main element of a music video (which is Mise-en-Scene). He owns an Academy Award for “Best Original Screenplay” which was for contributions in both the Film industry and the Music video industry. He has worked with artists such as Daft Punk (My favourites). However, there are two artists which one will look at. First is the Pop star Kylie Minogues with the song "Come into my world" and the second is the rock band White Stripes (Another favourite group) with the song 'Push the Hardest Buttons". According to critics, Gondry's videos are more conventional to the genres but stand out from the crowd, while the second video producer which will be mentioned in detail later on is more of the extreme revert when it comes to music conventions.

The first Gondry music video "Come into my world" by Kylie Minogue, is a box standard pop video for the normal music video viewer. However, to fans of the genre and artist, the video severely differentiates from others in the genre. Straight away, the audience would spot a noticeable change which is the location of the shoot for the video. While the location is not glamorous such as: California, the small Italian town used represents a fresh look for the pop music video. Another difference would be that Kylie is wearing more causal clothing which while very stylish and being of European chick, is not the fancy outfits the audience is used to see from her previous videos.
Another point would be that, while the video does not contain dance routines (A standard convention for a pop video) it follows a routine of her day as an Italian girl. The difference being that after her daily routine finishes, she is duplicated. Thus the same routine has been used to reflect the concept of the song "come into my world". There are also so many inter-textual references such as the Italian brand clothing or the display of a Smart passing by. There  is a direct link between lyrics and visuals as the music and visuals are constantly repeating themselves. This music video follows mainly the Narrative and slightly the Performance segment of Goodwin's theory, as the artist is doing a routine in front of the camera which can be categorised as a performance.

Meanwhile, “Push the Hardest Buttons” is conventional to the rock music genre as it sticks to the common theme of a rock band.For example, during the video the band was wearing casual clothing while there was a lot of Performance (Use of instruments such as a Guitar and etc.). The video also follows Goodwin's theory (The segment that states that visuals are linked with the music) as every time there is a beat, the frame of the video changes to more or equivalently less music equipment on the screen. The overall video is quite a conventional as it is very realistic, relateable video for audiences as it is set in city location/ on the subway somewhere in America.

Chris Cunningham, born in 1970, is the other music video director. Cunningham produced mainly music videos for eletronic genres which include artists such as Aphex Twin.
Aphex Twins (AT's) videos produced by Cunningham have a very complex narrative that is hard to  understand for audiences. This makes it appeal to the audience as they are constantly trying to figure out what is being displayed. Both videos have an unconventional view through there narratives. Cunningham's work features close ups of the artist face in order to promote him further, due to the demands of the record label. They tend to follow the same pattern of being unconventional and rather have a dark/evil theme. This would keep the audience out of there comfort zone, which in turn could make them more edgy or uninterested to carry on listening.

As we can see, there are various similarities and differences between the style of the two music video directors. Cunningham has a more extreme approach while Gondry has a more moderate approach as he does follow some conventions of the genre. It should be said that Cunningham's videos have a less structured narrative and seem to be more darker in emotion, while Gondry's is the complete opposite as it is more life like and cheerful.

In Conclusion artists might choose to have a diverse video as it will be remembered by the audience, or that they might like the idea that the artist has changed his style which stops him from repeating himself and entertaining the audience. Nevertheless, the artist must remember that there are negatives as well as positives within the choice for such a video. For example one problem might be that there might be no emotional impact on the audience from the video as it is too confusing for the audience. Nevertheless, it would be a good idea for once in a while for the artist to release such a music video in order to shaken up his image.