I got a chance to
do some reading this week on the topic of music video and got some insight what
makes it special, and from what I have read it gives great insight on why it is
so very special.
From reading three different chapters
about it in Kevin Williams’ book, “Why I Want My MTV” I have determined that
they all share a common theme. That theme is that music video is a form of
expression that transcends just plain sights and sounds. It takes from those
elements and combines them into something completely new, and the possibilities
are only as limited as the creators mind is. Images, colors, light and dark,
and even camera angles all interact in various ways with the music they are
paired with. The result is an evolution and fusion between sight and sound, and
the manifestation of this inspiring art form.
In chapter 5, the
reading discusses how music video deviates from traditional cinematic
filmmaking that includes narratives and plots and instead focuses on relating
imagery, culture and symbolism to the viewer in a nonlinear format, relying on
the music and images to convey the determined style, all the while trying to
emulate pop culture.
A good way of
summing up chapter 5 would be the concept of “Musical-visuality is thus
the interplay and interpenetration of sights and sounds, music and visuals
whereby sights dance to the sounds of music and sounds appear visually.” a
quote coming directly out of that chapter.
Chapter 6 continues expand on the concept of
visual literacy and how our society has already determined what certain images mean
and how to associate them to real life scenarios and how music video seeks to
take what is familiar in a certain context and morph them into another entity.
This allows practically everything to be used as ammo for the music video
creator and nothing is out of their grasp. All is fair in the world of music
video and nothing has to obey the rules of the rational world. Understanding
this idea opens the door to a greater level of creative expansion.
This leads me to chapter 7. This chapter mostly
discusses realism and hyper-reality; something that I find is the best thing
about music video. It is here that music video shines at being a truly
wonderful form of entertainment and communication. It takes the ideas that all
these chapters have been discussing and meshes them together, using
hyper-reality and what we know about realism as the glue.
It is here where we can really take all the things
that reality has dubbed as something and make it something completely
different. It can be as comical, explanative, obscene, confusing, metaphorical,
or as symbolic as we want and we wouldn’t be wrong. This is the beauty of music
video and visual literacy. Music and imagery together are great by themselves,
but when orchestrated properly, they can speak ideas and thoughts they couldn’t
separately.
All these different ideas about musical-visuality,
non-linear narratives and style and association are all concepts that work
integrate together perfectly to create some great art and without them, music
video would either not exist or be really lame.
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