Style Concept Narrative example essay topic

The Pop Promo Explanation A pop promo is a promotional tool used by record companies to affect the sales of a single, released by a music artist. A pop promo can include a certain theme or colour scheme which will best enhance the song visually. Pop videos are shown on music television stations, watched by millions around the globe. Anchorage - This means that aside from the lyrics and music, the imagery in a music video must anchor the strength and focus of the audience. Performance Video - 3/4 of all pop promos are performance based, with some kind of performance being made by the artist such as miming to the lyrics. Non-Performance - Usually narrative based including a theme or story.

Hybrid - When they are both mixed together. How Pop promos use Generic Conventions of Other Media Pop music videos often use generic conventions of other media for example television and film. Generic conventions simply mean a set of rules used by types of media to convey a genre of that media type. An example of the use of generic conventions within the media would be that a Situation Comedy like Friends is always based around everyday life - the family, work, love and is always (with exception of a few) set mainly in locations such as the home or work environment. A second example would be for instance that of the British soap opera. Which include the following generic conventions... o Same locations in each episode o Large Families, often in competition with each other o Love triangles, love hexagons etc and relationship issues o Theme of work (always within the community) o Some kind of tragedy occurring in storylines o A linear style of narrative o Cliff-hanger style endings HERO A specific example of a cross over of generic convention would be the music video for the song 'Hero' by Enrique Iglesias.

This epic promo uses the talents of well known actors to deliver a mini movie which includes the themes and conventions of a fugitive style film, in which Iglesias himself plays the part of the hero saving the girl (Jennifer Love-Hewitt). This is an apt choice of style by the writers as the song is a dramatic epic musically. It is essential that Iglesias plays the tanned hero in the video as this is how he will be sold to his mainly female audience, he is telling his fans "I can be your hero" this is something they will buy into and will help the record company sell loads of copies of this single and even his album. Analysing Music Videos Analyse using headings: Style / Concept/Narrative "Without me" by Eminem The reason which I have analysed Without Me is because it uses parody so well and therefore fits into my first drafts of our music video well.

Style - Narrative in style of a comic book. Often you see borders around the subject material in style of a comic, and wording effects are shown with exclamation marks. The narrative is shown in a linear style and there is objective to the characters (Dre and Eminem) and their actions. The style is eccentric and humorous. Bright colouring and celebrities often appear.

Parody also is included in the parts of Batman and Robin, The Real World and ER. Concept - Simple concept of a child being saved by comic book characters but told in a confusing way, its only after seeing the video several times that you can un-jumble it and see the real narrative. Special effects are used to explain the concept. The concepts connotations also included a recurring theme of humour and parody.

The bright colours used bring a mood of immaturity and childishness which hide the many adult jokes or themes. Narrative - A young boy buys a CD from a supermarket that has a Parental Guidance logo on it, whilst his mother isn't looking and is flirting with a sales assistant. Eminem is with scantily dressed women on his extravagant bed when he gets an emergency call from Dre "Slim, to the Rapmobile" (parody of Batman films). The first verse eventually begins and Eminem is shown on an operating table, which not only correlates with the rapping, but also is a parody of E.R. The underlying main narrative continues in the 'Rapmobile' with alter ego Slim Shady messing around and rapping with Dre next to him. They are on a mission to stop the boy from the opening sequence from listening to the Explicit Lyrics CD that he bought. Then the second verse begins and Eminem parodies MTV show The Real World.

More lyrics from the song are shown visually, such as Eminem's friend Obi Trice beating up musician Moby etc, before the main narrative starts to end with Eminem crawling up the wall to stop the young boy from putting the CD into his player. Parody in Pop Promos "Tribute" by Tenacious D The reason in which I have decided to analyse Tribute is because being a rock song, using parody and humour it fits well into the criteria of our own production. To me the pop promo for Tribute illustrates parody of the 'classic rock performance', a long with weaker links between other stories and genres. Although their performance is eminent of rock performance parody, the bands costumes tell otherwise. They look like typical dusty road American truckers, beer bellies, tight t shirts, shorts and old white trainers, this in comparison to which they are parodying, such as cat suits or leather jackets like meatloaf. Their facial expressions however, mimic those of previous rock cult status Other than the lyrics, the first humorous aspect of the video which I noticed was the narrative.

The lyrics flow like a fairy tale and the band members are transported to a fairytale setting as they lyrically reminisce the story. The set is mostly contrived of computer generated graphics, a canyon and a long straight dusty road. The narrative is where the humour lies, and like a fairytale, it is based around a battle between good and evil. The two band members are cast as lonely wandering travellers and they are faced with a problem "there shone a shiny demon, in the middle of the road" the demon then orders the guitar clad wanderers to play "the best's gg in the world or ill eat you " re souls". So the story is set up from there, they perform a song and it just so happens to be the best song in the world, lucky for them eh?

The song builds to a climax until a blinding light hits the back of the singers. The giant computer generated demon emerges and plays the final riff before the band leave the fairytale setting to launch a humorous rock attack on passing shoppers.