Intertexuality and music videos

Cinema has allowed artists and record labels to bring music to life through the medium of music videos. Advances in technology have made it able for produces and directors to go beyond the expectations of what a music video could be, and we have seen revolutionary music videos being made every few years. Surprisingly, music videos have in fact been around since the 1920's, with many Jazz musicians at the time (such as Bessie Smith) making short films to accompany their popular songs. In the 1970's, the record industry discovered that TV shows could be used as a great way to promote artists. Record labels started to focus on creating short promos which were seen as early music videos, replacing live performances on TV shows. In 1975, Queen released the revolutionary video for Bohemian Rhapsody which marked the beginning of the music video era and set the scene for modern music videos, with its ground breaking use of advanced visual effects.

As the advances in music videos continued, they became more than just performance based and tended to look more and more like short films, television shows or video games. Goodwin also proposed that 'There is often intertextual reference between films, TV programmes, and other music videos'. Many well known directors such as David Fincher, Spike Jonze and Michael Gondry started out making music videos, using this medium as a way to show off their skills and using the opportunity to be creative and make these videos look like short films.

Music videos that have been made to look like films -

Madonna's "Material Girls" video is one of the most notable videos that was based on an actual film, basing its style on the Marilyn Monroe film "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". In the video, Madonna is dressed as Marilyn Monroe's character from the film and tends to imitate one of the dance scenes from the film. The narrative of the music video has also adopted a film style, with many of the scenes being acted out without the music.

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video is also a very famous example of a music video that adopts a film style, having a very similar style to the film "An American Werewolf In London". The music video depicts the lyrics of the song very well and gives off the thriller/horror movie vibe. This music video also has many scenes that are acted out without the music playing, giving it a more professional film look and the uncut version is also a lot longer than a usual music video, which would be about 3-4 minutes long.

30 Seconds To Mars' "The Kill" video is once again a brilliant example of a music video that is based on a film. The video was inspired by the film "The Shining" and the narrative surrounding the video is very similar to the story in "The Shining". The music video was also shot at the same place that the movie was actually filmed at, taking it to the next level of basing a music video on a film. Once again, it uses scenes that have been acted out without music to give it the film look and is also much longer than a normal music video. However, unlike the other examples I have used this video cuts back to shots of the band performing the song as well as following the story.

Music videos that have been made to look like television programmes -

REM's "Bad Day" video has been made to look like a news programme. This video seems to mock news programmes and the way news reporters deliver the news, as the singers lip sync to the song whilst pretending to be typical news reporters delivering the news off an autocue. As the song is called "Bad Day" they play on this in the video, insinuating that everything you hear on the news is pessimistic and melancholy.

The Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" video is a spoof of cop shows. The band are intentionally badly dressed up as cops to add humour to the video and the shots adopt a fast pace which you would usually see in cop shows.

Music videos that have been made to look like video games:

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Californication" video has been made to look like a video game, with influences from many video games of its time. The video consists of a game where a third person point of view sees each of the band members off to some sort of adventure, eventually concluding with all of them meeting at the center of the Earth. There are many homages to the bands logo in the video, using it as checkpoints for the game.

MC Lars' "Guitar Hero Hero" song and video is a spoof of the Guitar Hero craze among children. In the video MC Lars dresses himself to look like a typical Guitar Hero player and we see many references to the game throughout. Other than being a very creative and entertaining video, it is a good marketing tool as people who like the game will want to watch the video and people who like MC Lars may want to go out and play Guitar Hero after watching the video, therefore this is a good use of synergy.

What I would do:

If I were to use the idea of intertextuality, I would like to base my music video on a film, or at least have it inspired by a film. This way, fans of that film in particular would want to see my music video because of its likeness to the film, which could build a bigger fan base for my artist. It would also provide a better storyline for my music video, possibly making it more narrative.