Intertextuality In Music Videos

• When cinema was invented it gave music and songs a chance to come to life.
• Since the first music video ever made, which was around the 1920's, the technology has improved exponentially.
• Bessie Smith made a short video to accompany her songs, and this was very popular amongst jazz musicians.
• In the 1970's, the record industry thought that it would be a great opportunity to use TV shows to promote their artists.
• Promo videos were used as early music videos which started to replace live performance of the band.
• In 1975, Queen released a music video of Bohemian Rhapsody. This was a groundbraking video because it was used advanced video effects which had never been used before.
• MTV started up in 1981, and this was one of the main launches for music videos to become more popular. In 1986 MTV introduced a show called '120 Minutes' which would feature music videos of a alternative genre.

Some music videos have been made to look like films. Here are some examples:

• 'Material Girl' by Madonna has a similar style to 'Gentleman Prefers Blondes'. She is adopting the style of Marilyn Monroe.
• 'California Love' by Tupac and Dr Dre has a similar style to the film 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome'. The music video was shot in the same location as 'Thunderdome' in the film.
• 'Thriller' by Michael Jackson has a similar style to 'An American Werewolf in London'. One of the reasons is because the film music composer Elmer Bernstein had already worked with Landis on 'An American Werewolf in London' beforehand.

Some music videos have been made to look like TV programmes. Here are some examples:

• 'Sabotage' by Beastie Boy's has been made to look like a spoof cop show. It contains shakey camera angles and police chases so could relate to the show 'Starsky and Hutch'.
• 'Bad Day' by REM has been turned into a video like a news show. The use of lip syncing has been used very cunningly to fit into how they would talk on an actual news show.

Some music videos have been made to look like video games, animations are included into this category. Here are some examples:

• 'Californication' by Red Hot Chili Peppers had the band in the video game and it swapped between each one of the members being the 'game character'. There logo is used for checkpoints in the video.
• 'Clint Eastwood' by Gorillaz is similar to most of their video's where it is a cartoon animation of them playing in the band. This is because Gorillaz were made famous for their cartoon animation. When they play live, they have the cartoon of them behind them.

Fashion and photography are used on some videos. Including reference to catwalks and supermodels. Here are some examples:

• 'Addicted To Love' by Robert Palmer is a similar video to 'I Feel Like A Woman' by Shana Twain. Not only are these similar videos but they use intertextuality to look like the film, 'Love Actually'.

John Stewart - 'incorporating, raiding and reconstruction'. To make the audience more interested in the music video, something should be used which is familiar to them. This could be a recognisable film or TV show for example.

The music video can make something mean something else, and have possible uses of advertisement in them.

Notion of Looking:

• Screens with screens - the camera could be positioned at screens, which could show the music video through them.
• Telescopes - these can be used as a type of camera angle. Maybe position the camera so it looks into the telescopes and film what can be seen through it, or position the camera as if it is the telescope.
• Mirrors - to make the environment look bigger.
• Looking glass - the camera can be placed through a glass to obscure the view, also can give the impression of something like 'Alice In Wonderland'.
• Indirect address - when the character isn't looking at the camera.
• Direct address - when the character is looking at the camera.
• Voyeurism - a sexual way of looking.
• 'Who Knew' by Pink is a great example of indirect and direct address. Pink is the narrator so she is using direct address to talk to the audience and the couple are the story in the video, so the camera is showing what is going on by using indirect address.