Whenever I start any essay I make a list of the key topics I need to discuss within it and then gather as much information about those topics as possible. The topics I picked out for this essay were historical context of music essays, the purposes of music videos, types of music videos and the codes and conventions these topics eventually became my paragraph headings. I like to continue researching as I write so once I had a few points of discussion for each topic I started writing my essay.
I wanted to first get a definition from a theorist of what makes a video a music video but I actually ended up disagreeing with all the theories I could find and decided I would base my essay on why I disagreed with the theorists. The theories I found were Andrew Goodwin, Vlladimir Propp and Roland Bartes and all these theories suggested that to be a music video there has to b a correlation between the lyrics and the images but I disagree. I thought of a better definition for music videos that my teacher helped me put into words and we came up with "Music videos are better defined as a post modern application of film theory". My aim was for this paragraph to be around 200 words.
I decided to open my first paragraph with the historical context of music videos and I had these notes when I started and I then expanded on them with more research as the essay started to flow.
Historical context 600 words
Just like adverts music videos are a form of short film
They originate from musical short films dating back to the 1920s
Musical short films were some of the first films to feature sound
Modern music videos are made purely to sell songs and are also used as things like teasers for new albums that are coming out.
Became really popular in the 1980s via MTV
1966 kinks first music video
Radiohead paranoid (no relation of the lyrics to the images)
Alexander Nevsky: why its not a music video
Links:
Goodwin, A, 1992, Dancing in the distraction factory, University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota
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