Riptide media language

Camerwork

Video uses a lot of close ups, looking at gun, lollipop etc.

There are a lot of whip pans throughout the video.

Use of canted angle when girl runs. The confusion increases as the song progresses.

lady performing a song on stage

First showing: a conventional performance. 'Star' is glamorous and performing the lip sync.

Second showing: There is now subtitles with spelling mistakes. Her makeup has become smeared and disheveled. Her lip sync no longer matches the song.

Third showing: There is now a look of distress. Her eye makeup implies crying and fear. The lyrics are wrong again.

Fourth showing: There is now blood connotating violence. The 'sta' now looks scared and in pain.

Fifth: The distress is still there but the blood has disappeared, she is holding her own throat. Violence and fear. Not conventional of a music video lip sync.

Intertextuality

Opening use of a movie billing block is the first intertextual reference to films and the film industry.

'Dragging away'- intertextual reference to horror films

VHS Tape, intertextual reference to film industry.

Cowboy, intertextual reference to western films.

Gypsy cards, intertextual reference to horror films

Packing of suitcase, intertextual reference to Wes Anderson

Men filming girl, intertextual reference to film industry.

-Almost becomes a film within a film with all the references-

Lyrical interpretations

Things like the girl with dental contraption in her mouth. Lyrical interpretations and overt graphic representations of the songs lyrics are used throughout the video.

Conventional narrative style is rejected and instead literal interpretations of the lyrics are used alongside montage editing.

"All my friends are turning green" = Denotation = His friend is turning and money is green". Connotation = His friends are envious of his success and fame.

voyeurism

A screen with a screen (tv) - the joy of looking. Voyeuristic.

Genre Conventions

Riptide is relatively unusual both as a music video in terms of its style, rejection of narrative and lack of spectacle or special effects.

Specifically as a text within the indie folk genre, a genre dominated by repetition (low-fi videos with bands playing instruments etc.) this video offers a unique variation to the indie-folk genre.

This video may have been designed to create a sense of intrigue about the band/artist being different to what is usually expected.

As Vance Joy's first music video sold to an American audience it is important for him to stand out and create a brand for himself.

Semiotics - Roland Barthes

The idea that texts communicate their meanings through a process of signification.

The idea that signs can function at the level of denotation, the 'literal' or common-sense meaning, and at the level of connotation, which means associated with or suggested by the sign.

The idea that constructed meanings can come to seem self-evident, achieving the status of myth through a process of naturalisation.

Genre theory - Steve Neale

- the idea that genres may be dominated by repetition, but are also marked by difference, variation and change

- the idea that genres change, develop and vary, as they borrow from and overlap with one another

- the idea that genres exist within specific economic, institutional and industrial contexts

Representations

The video offers many interesting examples of the representation of women. There is a lot of

interpretation that can be applied to the way women are presented within this music video.

The video could be seen as reinforcing a patriarchal world view due to the objectification of females and the constant use of them as victims. A woman is shown to be removing her bathing suit and there are numerous images of weapons being used against women or women in peril.

However it could also be seen as a mirror on the film world and its expectations of women. Due to the intertextual references it could be approached as a comment upon this industry. The use of a women with imperfect makeup could also be seen to subvert gender stereotypes. A lot of the footage of women is of non-sexualised areas.

Theories of representation - Stuart Hall

The idea that media products use signs and codes to translate representation (stereotypes).

The idea that stereotyping reduces people to a few simple characteristics or traits.

The idea that stereotyping tends to occur at imbalances of power, as subordinate or excluded groups are constructed as different or 'other' (e.g. through ethnocentrism)

Theories of identity - David Gauntlett

The idea that the media provide us with 'tools' or resources that we use to construct our identities.

The idea that whilst in the past the media tended to convey singular, straightforward messaged about ideal types the media today offers us a more diverse range of stars, icons and characters from whom we may pick and mix different ideas.

Feminist theory - Liesbet Van Zoonen

The idea that gender is constructed through discourse, and that its meaning varies according to cultural and historical context.

The idea that the display of women's bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture.