Sabotage, textual analysis

track name: sabotage

Artist: Beastie Boys.

Director: Spike Jonze.

Genre characteristics: Rap/Rock, due to its fast pace it fit both the conventions of rap and rock. This video in particular reflects how male orientated rap and rock can be. Although I'm shore there are girls who choose who listen to the Beastie Boys, it is quite obvious due to the aggressive nature and the cop parade that the video is trying to appeal to a male audience.

relationship between the lyrics and visual: the is some contradiction within the link between the visual and lyrics as the words seem to be talking about rebelling against the police but the visual is about cop's who seem to be winning in there battle against crime. But because this representation is that of a spoof it could be seen that that artist is mocking the police for the way they act/acted.

relationships between the music and visual: The fast pace music very much fits with the quick editing and pace of movement. The sound is very aggressive and so the aggressive nature of the mock violence fit each other also there are some clever cue3s in the video where an action changes withe the music for example when there was an explosion the music also went louder to match the visual.

Are there close-ups of the artist and star motifs?: there is use of close ups in the music video but they dont promote the singer even though it is them the close ups on, this is due the the costumes, the costumes discise them very well as unless you knew the artist well its not very obvious it is them. So the close-ups are mocking the genre rather than focusing on how great the artists are themselves.

Is there reference to the notion of looking?: There is a large focus on visual comedy, and this make the genre of the video obvious and easily recognised It is also very cliche by using scenes we would have seen in 70's cop shows such as Starsky and Hutch e.g. jumping over the bonnet of a car.

Are there any intertextual references?: The main focus is on the mockery of 70's cop shows such as Starsky and Hutch and Miami Vice. it hilight the most unrealistic sterotypes of 70's cop's and so therefor making a mockery.

Is it performance based, narrative based or concept based? how much of each?: It is more concept based because you wouldn't link the song and 70's cop shows together automatically. There is a sense of narrative as well e.g.the capture and tracking down of a hostage, but it is very brief and you can't figure out a complete story line from it.

lyrics

The band have now finished their recording of the song we intend to use (Buss). Now we can use the song to relate our concepts and narrative to when deciding on changes or new things to add to our story boards. Although we new the lyrics before this, it is now easier because we needed to know the sound of the music and what kind of visuals would fit in well with that sound, we didn't want to start filming something that didn't match the generic conventions of the song. I have learnt that the song is louder and more brash than i initially thought, but this kind of fits in with what we were aiming for in the video anyway e.g. the annoyance of public transport and the social groups associated with it. If the sound was too soft we would have problems fitting it with the concept of our video.

V1
been waiting so long,
my bikes on the Fritz,
got no other options my dad is to pissed,
its poring it down,
when it finally comes,
what do you mean your not in service

V2
step on to the bus,
all the metro's run,
to add to my mysery my moneys all gone,
sit next to a tramp,
or else the bad boys,
they play there crap music to add to the noise

Chorus
all i want to do is get to my, destination!
a to b yeah, no complication!
but i just cant see no other way, ive got to get there!
but maybe not today x2

decisions

to get a feel for the type of music and personality of the band my group members came to one of our gigs, we also used the time to talk with the bad about scheduling and song choice, we also got some good live footage as the gig happened to be a good one which included allot of punk gig conventions (mosh-pit, stage dive). last lesson we decided on the the song "buss" we chose this song because it has a firm theme that is constant throughout and it also provides many good opportunity's for the use of our imagination and fun ideas due to the lyrics of the song, which expresses allot of stereotypical view off public transport. So we thought a good idea would be to do a split storied video to show each of the band members at different bus stops around Bristol going to the same destination, and on the way they will encounter various representatives of social groups common to what we would associate with using public transport e.g. Chavs, tramps, school kids, gangsters ETC. At the end of the video, the band should come together at the same time and we should see them playing live in front of a crowd. Next lesson we want to create a storyboard consisting of the ideas and once we are settled on the main ideas and concepts we want to use for the video, we will incorporate them into a target audience questionnaire so that we can get feedback and tweak the ideas before we start making the video.

band?

My group consists of myself, Josh kington and Fabienne Gould. luckily for us i am in a band and so finding a band was very easy and so we will be making our ad, video and CD cover for my band splutter. Also the availability of my band is very good as we all go to the same school and we meet twice a week for practising anyway, we will also have full participation from the other band members due the fun nature of our coursework and also because if done well a music video will be very use full for our bands advertisement and so hopefully a good product will be made. The band consists of Dan Palmer (big D) on drums, Dan Newns (little D) lead guitar, Arthur Hagues rhythm guitar, Paul Clayton bass and trumpet and me Tom Turrell vocals. The band genre is a hybrid of punk and ska music, due to this musical inspiration is taken from many genres of rap, rock and jazz. due to the way splutter are a hybrid genre this gives us allot more freedom in that there isn't just one genre conventions we have to stick to and so we can be allot more creative in the making of our ad, video and cover. splutter play numerous venues around Bristol this gives us a good opportunity the put the personality of the band into our ideas, it also gives opportunity's for live recording and photographs. The audience will also be a good way to decide our target audience.