Research into diversity

The elements that make up a video consist of a strong narrative or performance, big celebrities, mise-en-scene behaviour and censorship, and finally the budget spent on the music video.The concept of diversity consists acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognising our individual differences and needs.  These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies.  It is the exploration of these differences in a safe, positive, and nurturing environment. It is about understanding each other and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each individual. Additionally, being unique is being an individual that does not follow a trend, they do the opposite and go again conventions of music video. They want to be different without being equal, equivalent and unparalleled to anyone else. Diversity and unique music videos would appeal to an audience as it would be the opposite of other music videos and artists that following conventions and genre stereotypes. The audience would remember the music video and it would stick with them as the song is played as it is a new trend. Music videos can be diverse by not following conventions of genre and not be stereotypical to a song. This is evident by 'Come to Daddy' song by Aphex Twin, the song is a dance genre but it does not have any conventions of a dance video as it does not have no club setting or dancing within the music video.

 I will be comparing two directors to explain and analysis why they are diverse and unique to other music video produces.The first director I will be looking at is Chris Cunningham who has directed 'Come to Daddy' by Aphex Twin and 'Frozen' by Madonna. I will be comparing Cunningham to Michael Gondry who directed 'Come into my world' by Kylie Minogue and 'The hardest button to button' by the White strips. I will be looking a four elements throughout analysising the four videos. These elements consist of presentation (music video genre characteristics), Goodwins theory , structure and style of the video and finally representation of the artist. These elements should allow me to be able to find out why the music videos are unique and diverse.

Chris Cunningham takes a dark and freaky look to a music video. He directs Gothic, thriller and scary movie like music videos. However, these music videos that he directs are effective and people remember this trade mark as he is diverse and unique because of the approach he takes to directing his music videos. The artists that he has worked with include Aphex Twin and Madonna, in which i will be analysising their music videos. Within the 'Come to Daddy' song produced by Aphex Twin, the  presentation of the music video is diverse as the genre is dance as it has a fast beat to it but it goes against conventions and this is what makes the music video diverse, unique and un-stereotypical.The song does not following a club scene, it is set in a council estate and it is more like a fantasy nightmare rather than a music video, the video is more like a scary video game where you are being chased. However, the music video does have fast paced editing which is a convention of dance.  The music video is more like a short film as it has more conventions of a film than a music video. The music video does not follow Goodwins theory and this is what makes it diverse as most music video have elements of Goodwins theory within them. It does not have any representation of the artist within the music video. A world wide music station such as MTV would ban the video because of censorship rights. The structure and style of the video is that it is 100% narrative based, the narrative is about children with scary masked on chasing and attacking a old lady, it is more like a thriller film than a music video, it makes the audience feel uncomfortable and it makes them realise that something is not right as a old lady is being attacked. It is like a thriller film as it does no have any conventions that it should consist of. There is no representation of the artist within the music video, it would not the audience any connection with the artist as he is not represented in the music video.

The second video that I will be analysising that Cunningham directed will be 'Frozen' by Madonna. This music video has a Gothic genre, this is evident through the clothing which is black, Madonna also turns into a crow during the music video, this explains that she is taking a more Gothic and dark approach to this music video rather than how she use to look. The characteristics of the song consist of a dark look as it in a dark location and it has a dark look to the song.The location of the video is unknown and it goes against Madonnas typical pop look and conventions  as she is a pop artist. There are a few elements of Goodwins theory that she following in her music video. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals this is evident when you see birds in the background and then she sings about them. The song consists of 90% performance as Madonna is singing and performing throughout the music video. The other 10% is narrative when she turns into animals and it gives away the dark atmosphere, this is the structure and style of the music video. I think that this has been used to show that Madonnas look has changed and that she is going for a different approach which people cannot understand or get over. The way that Madonna is represented in the music video is different to how she is normally presented as a pop start therefore she and her song is being diverse and unique. She is emotional throughout her video and she has changed her image a lot to try to keep up with the young audience. She is rebelling against the conventions of a typical music video- she wants to be different.

Michel Gondry is a Academy Award winning french filmmaker who works include being a commercial director, film director and an music video director. Gondry is more creative and has more editing in his music videos than Cunningham. He is still unique and diverse in his music videos as he does not follow conventions of genre characteristics and music videos. Gondry worked with Kylie Minogue when she wanted to record her song 'Come into my world'. The characteristics of this music video are typical to a pop genre song. As the song is filmed in a realistic location being Paris and Kylie is wearing typical everyday clothing which the audience can relate to. This is what a normal music video should be like, but as there are more of her introduced it changes it and people will be a bit confused from the music video. She does relate to Goodwins theory throughout her video but not as much as a typical pop video, the first visible point being the relationship between the lyrics and visuals, as she sings 'come into my world' and then a second kylie comes onto the screen and into her world. However, there is not enough to make it a pop song, as she only follows one part of Goowins theory. The structure and style of the music video consists of 90% performance as she sings throughout the song and around 10% narrative as she is walking in circles repeating the same story. This is strange as the artist is represented in a different way to what she normally is which confuses her target audience and makes them feel like they wanna know whats going on with her, it attracts them to her even more. Kylie minogue is represented throughout the music video as she is in it all the way through. She is being very conventional to pop and the audience can relate to her conventions through clothing, the location and the song itself but not as much as a normal music video. Gondry follows more conventions than Cunningham in this music video than the fist one that I analysed for him as he did not follow any of Goodwins theory however, both songs are diverse as they follow none or limited conventions of Goodwins theory

Michel Gondry directed 'The darkest button to button" by the white strips. The genre of this group and their song was alternative rock. It did have conventions of this and they were represented by the instruments they were using which were guitars and drums. They also had face paint on and their clothes were rock based as they had skinny jeans on which is conventional to a rock genre music video, as normal rock stars stress to be different and just want them and their music to be noticed.The song followed some of Goodwins theory as it followed genre characteristics which the guitar, drums, clothes and make up. There was a link between the lyrics and the music, as every time he hits the drum base, the guitar or drums double with the beat. The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals are evident when he sings about a red box and he has one with him. The structure and style of the music video is that it is 100% performance, it has no narrative or concept within the music video. This is normal to a rock style song as they want the audience to be engaged with what their doing. The representation of the artists is shown within the music video as they follow a few rock conventions but they do not perform in from of a crowd or they are not playing in a gig within a small proportion of the music video. It is just them with their instruments playing their song, the main focus is on the artist.  Cunningham and Gondry's style of his music videos are mainly 90-100% performance, it shows that they are doing this as normal directors have more of a percentage on other parts such as narrative or concept within the music videos.

The music industry consists of mainly artists following genre conventions and some songs look the same as they are following the same conventions such as the presentation, Goodwins theory, structure/ style and representation of artist. For example R'n'B songs follow the same conventions in all most every music video as they should include stylish clothing, the artist dancing on their own or with a group, a slow then faced paced beat and a girl within their music video. It shows that stereotypically these kinda of song follow the same conventions. An artist would chose to create a diverse and unique video to stand out from the crowd and be different to everyone else. The audiences that they would be perfuming to would like the fact that the artist or song are breaking coventions and are not following the trends of normal artists instead they are making their own trends. Their are postives and also negatives that c an be brought around from making a diverse or unique music video. The postives can include things such as the music videos are different, the target audeince will remember the video when theys ong is played on a radio etc and they break conventions or trends, However, the negatives that be brought out a diverse msuic video would be that the target audience would be able to understand or relate to the artist. They would have no interest in the artsit and the music video maybe unpopular.

I feel as if Gondrys style of directing would suit the music video that my group and I have chosen for our music video. This is because he follows some conventions of a genre and he follows some conventions of Goodwins theory. Whereas Cunningham breaks all conventions and he does not follow any of Goodwins theory. Although both directors are similar in the fact they are diverse and do not follow all conventions, they are different as Cunnignham goes to the extreme of not following any conventions in the song such as 'Come to Daddy'. Where Gondry does follow some conventions but not enough to follow the crowd. In Cunninghams song 'Come to Daddy' he does however use fast editing to keep with the beat of the song and i would wnt to use this when making my music video. However, he uses dark and Gothic like scenes within his music videos and i would not use this as i feel they are too off topic and they a not related to the song in anyway. In Gondrys videos he does follow some genre characters tics and i would take this forward to my music video. He does not use that much from Goowins theory however, and i feel a music video needs as many points from Goowins theory as possible to be a good music video. I feel as if the points i have identified will follow the genre characteristics of my music video.