Vance Joy - Riptide (Music Video Analysis) 1

Vance Joy - Riptide (Music Video Analysis)

• Music Videos as a postmodern medium 
• By combining two previously separate industries, using an often excessive variety of textual elements just for the hell of it, and by deemphasising the importance of traditional narrative.

• Postmodernism
• Impossible to define.

• Aspects of Postmodernism
• Distrust of form, convention and established conventions
• Style over Substance
• Emphasises surface readings over deeper analysis.

• Example of Postmodernism
• Breaking the Fourth Wall

Vance Joy - Riptide - Indie Pop Genre

• Directly connected with the lyrics

• Non-Continuity Editing

• Beat Matched

• General theme and narrative - montage of shots suggests themes of drowning, dying and death.

• Alternative theme and narrative - an unpredictable and deliberately misleading montage of shots.

• Deliberately invites polysemic interpretations.

• Montage consistently matches the themes of the lyrics, eg 'cowboy running' is matched with the long shot, symbolic of dual personalities, afraid of what he has become.

• Intertextuality - the mise-en-scene suggests the conventions of a Western film, and therefore functions as a referential code.

• Referential codes create audience appeal, as only certain audiences will understand the reference.

• Additionally, the mid shot of the seance and the mise-en-scene in the ouija board is referential of horror cinema, in particular 70's horror films. 

• We see reference to the 70's in the mid shot of the letter dated 'August 1974' anchors the audience into a particular time period, because it is seen as 'cool'.

• By seeing the mid/ls of feet being dragged under a bed, slightly low angled shot, low key lighting and blue/purple lighting which connotes darkness, misery and threat.

• It denies the audience a definite response and definite conclusion.

• Voyeuristic M/S high angled POV shot of young blonde woman removing the one piece yellow swimsuit, the mustard yellow is very 70's along with the slow zoom. Intertextual reference to early Bond films.

• Heavily manicured female hand pushes red leather bound book into frame in a manor which seems rehearsed, robotic and non-consensual.

• Positions the audience in a voyeuristic, even perverted perspective, forcing the audience to consider Van Zoonen's notion of a predatory male gaze.

Context

• Vance Joy was born in Australia.
• He is signed to Atlantic Records (a subsidiary of major-label warner).
• Its an indie-folk-pop genre.
• Riptide was Vance Joy's first single to be released in the UK.
• It went platinum as over 1 million copies got sold.

Key Terms

• Objectification
• The process in which the producer dehumanises a person, and make them appear on the same level as an object, this is done through the use of mise-en-scene, media language and shot types etc.

• Male Gaze
• The assumption that every media product is made for heterosexual male audience, which means that the function of every women we see, is there for the pleasure of the male. - Lisbet Van Zoonen.

• Sexualisation
• The process of valuing someone only for their sexual appeal.

• Voyeurism
• 'Peeping Tom' - taking pleasure from watching someone whilst you're undetected.

• Scopophillia
• The love of watching, another word for Voyeurism.

Textual Analysis of Shot in Riptide

• High Angle/Mid Shot - voyeuristic connotations, and we are positioned as the voyeur.

• Mise-en-scene of the ty-dye looking top looks almost like she is bleeding, so it has the intentions that theres something bad in the 'riptide'.

• Looking out into the ocean which is symbolic of adventure, and exploring the world.

• Costume is quite exotic and exciting.

• Framed in the centre of the shot so she is centre of attention and emphasising her importance to her heterosexual male audience according to Lisbet van zoonen.

• Shallow depth of field, she is the only thing in focus so a zoom lense would be used, it positions the audience in a scopophilliac way.

• By her having her back turn't it connotes that she is unaware that someone is watching her again positioning the audience as a voyeurist.

• The setting of the beach makes it seem luxurious.

• Seems like natural lighting.