Media Language

Economic contexts

• The low budget, unique style of the music video

  • This could be done due to economic reasons, Vance Joy maybe didnt have much capital to do higher budget videos since he was not commercial enough - so he had limited access to funding

• The low budget style could actually fit the style of the video as it reinforces the acoustic style of the video

• Later Vance Joy projects like Georgia featured higher budget videos which could imply that the reason for the low budget was economical

• The lower quality style may not be that attractive to the mainstream audiences.

The use of editiing

• It featured Montage editing, used in an overt way - Contrasting shots were juxtaposed usually through hard jump cuts to convey large amounts of info

• The use of montage editing means audiences have to build the connections between the cuts themselves which is more intellectually engaging and it suits the lower budget aesthetic

• These cuts also highly link to the lyrics (quite literal)

  • This may imply that the video rewards more active consumers

The rejection of a linear narrative

Riptide deliberately resists a narrative coherence, which reinforces the low budget, indie aesthetic and positions Vance Joy as an artistic alternative act rahter than a commercial mainstream one.

The key idea is that the rejection of a narrative is an economic decision, an artistic and a marketing one. This is because it costs less to produce, it suits the songs tone and constructs Vance Joy as a serious, alternative artist

Codes and conventions of media forms and products

• Lyrics interpreted on the screen

• Intertextual references

Lyrics in Riptide

They are overt graphical representations of the lyrics

"Taken away by the darkside” and a women pulled under the bed

“I was scared of dentists and the dark” features a shot of someone with metal in her mouth suggests she is in a chair.