Comparison of music videos...

We looked at two different music videos from different genres, rock and pop.

Pop video Lady Gaga- Paparazzi vs. Rock Video Green Day- American Idiot

Using Goodwin's theory Lady Gaga's video combines a linear narrative with a concept based dance sequence that has intertextual references. It almost spoofs the french films of the 1930s and 40s which is shown through the title sequence and the subjects speaking in French. The narrative fits with the song, as it is about the way the paparazzi portay the artist involved: Lady Gaga. The narrative shadows this by showing a comic book farce of Gaga being pushed off of a balcony and becoming paralysed while being persued by the paparazzi then her learning to walk again. Everything is extremely over exagerated and surreal. 

On the other hand, in Green Day's video it is strictly performance based. The three band members are shown literally just playing their instruments. Although they are just playing their instruments meanwhile it does include intertextual reference as they have included shots of the camera actually filming the performance. There are also a couple of shots of a television screen which shows the performance as if being played on the TV.

There is connection in the Greenday video between the lyrics and the music through, the american flag taking up the background (green to be different and fit in with the green of the bands Greenday)

and the fact that the song repeats the line "American Idiot" a lot.

In Gaga's video the setting is in a mansion. Shots of a mansion take up the majority of the video, with different rooms assumingly of the mansion being shown at different intervals dependent on wether they are following the narrative or showing the shots of concept based material.

Greendays video meanwhile is purely based in what has been set up as a empty warehouse. This creates a sparseness that really shows off the band as they play, and gives a much more grungy look that is so unlike the highly polished and contrived setting of the Paparazzi video.

Lady Gagas video is full of notions of looking with for example indicative outfits being worn and suggestive dance moves being shown. 

In the Greenday meanwhile there is no sign of notions of looking which is something that is almost a convention of rock music videos where there is very little use of the notion of looking.

Characteristics of the actual artists are also involved heavily in both videos, as both being well established artists they bring they create and emphasise their own personas in the videos. Lady Gaga is personified with the introduction with shocking and outrages scenes, which are shown in this video. She is also known for her outrages outfits.

Greenday meanwhile are personfied by the colours that they use in their videos, which is due to the name a lot of green, plus due to their genre red and black.