AT: Deconstructing Music Videos

Razorlight - Somewhere else.
Institution and audience
How might this video be consumed? Channels? Ambient or focused viewing?
The music video 'Somewhere else' by Razorlight would be consumed through a variety of different media channels. The first channel would be through TV, shown on music programmes such as 'MTV' and 'Kerrang!'. However the largest amount of consumption would be through web 2.0 an example of web 2.0 is youtube and youtube is often used by song artists to put up their music videos as it adds meaning and pleasure to the song, the added value of star image, live performance and music videos inspire consumers to buy the song. Youtube can be accessed by anyone who has access to the internet and therefore it means there is a large possiblemarket out there for the song. The song can be played in two ways as it can be ambient viewed by people just having it switched on the music channel just playing the music in the background or on youtube. It can also be focused viewing as the music video is interesting with use of the extra digetic gaze breaking the fourth wall.

Richard Dyer has written extensively about the role of stars in music. The star image is incoherant, that is complete and open. Dyer says that this is because it is based upon two key paradoxes. In the first paradox it is evident that the star in the music video is simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary as he is just walking down the street, however heis extraordinary when he is switching from location to location and is singing to the consumer. In the second paradox the star is simultaneously present and absent as he is there breaking the fourth wall however he doesnt always interact with the consumer and is always switching location making him unreachable.Genre and narrative

what are the forms and conventions evident in the video?

Andrew Goodwin identified features of music videos. More commercial record labels would conform more to this list however in the indie genre you would see less of this conforming, however some element in order to build up the meta-narative of the artist. It is evident in this music video that there are a number of close ups of the artist and him wearing the same costumer throughout in order to create his visual style. However this video breaks stereotypes as it is normally found in the rap genre of a person walking down the street singing to the camera and therefore this makes the video interesting and futher reinforces the indie genre by being independant. The video is narrative based as no performance is done except lipsynching. However the narrative helps to amplify the meaning of the lyrics, for example when he sings ' I really wish I could be somewhere else' and his location constanlty switches, making a deeper connotation of the lyrics and shows that no matter where he is he wishes he was with this certain girl, of which is an aurual singnifier.
Is this an example of illustration or amplification? Or disjuncture? Why?
This video is an example of amplification as the lyrics are amplified by the visual creating an aurual signifier. In the lyrics ' I really wish I could be somewhere else' shows his location constantly switching, making a deeper connotation of the lyrics, which is reinforced by the rest of the song talking about this girl who he met and took an interest to, and in all the shots he is shown as alone walking down the street connoting that he is looking for her and he would rather be with here than all these other places.

Barthes believes that every narrative has multiple codes or stranbds that are interlinked together. The use of the Enigma code as he is constantly walking in all this different locations and leaves the audience wondering, where is going? why is he alone? Making us ask these questions creating a sense of mystery in order to increase the repeatability of the track top be watched over again to look for clues.

Could this video be considered art? does it present any challenging ideas? or is it inherently commercial?
This video could be considered as art as it is in the indie genre, meaning that the video will often be independant. It is evident it is not so overly comercialised due to not to much of a star brand is created however there is evidence of some meta-narrative forming as mentioned previously by Richard Dyer's paradoxes. The video challenges the ideologies of indie bands by conforming to some of the commercial industry 'features'. However this is probably due to some commercial element has to come into due to the band wanting to sell there music and as requested by the record label.