Intertextuality, Illustration, Amplification and Disjuncture

Intertextuality:

An intertextual reference is where something is linked to something else. For example, a music video may have scenes within it that link to particular scenes in movies or may link to particular aspects of a video game.

Californication – Red Hot Chilli Peppers

This video has an intertextual link to lots of different films through the use of a video game style. It is an extremely clever video as the concept of the video is that the world is becoming fake and unrealistic and everything about places like Hollywood in California is fake as it is full of celebrities.
 

Take On Me – Aha

This video is interesting to me as it contains intertextuality to another type of media (comics) as well as a story, meaning that people could say this video is an illustration.

Illustration:

Illustration is where the lyrics of the song illustrate the scenes in the video and tell the story to the audience as it is occurring in a visual context.
 

Dancing in the Moonlight – Toploader

This whole song illustrates the idea of ‘dancing in the moonlight’, so basically having a party, and in the video, all that happens is that people are dancing and having fun at night at some sort of party.

Stacy’s Mum – Fountains of Wayne

All of the lyrics in the music match what is happening in the actual video, illustrating the idea of Stacy’s mum being ‘hot’ and the idea that the boy wants to see her and not Stacy.

Amplification:

Amplification is where a key idea is taken from the lyrics and the whole music video is purely based on that one concept. This is probably the most popular way of producing a music video due to the tacky look that can be gained in many cases when using illustration or disjuncture unless they are produced properly.

In Too Deep – Sum41

This music video highlights the concept of being in too deep with the references throughout to the high diving board where a team of professional high-divers are competing against the actual Sum41 band members and is supposed to portray the idea of being in too deep. This is also symbolised by the fact that they are in the deep end of the swimming pool which is supposed to match the main concept of the song by saying that the people are in too deep in more ways than one.

Playing God – Paramore

This video portrays the idea of amplification well as it highlights the idea of someone 'playing God' and acting like they're better than everyone else, which is what Hayley Williams (Lead singer of Paramore) does in this video.

Disjuncture:

Keep it all in – Beautiful South

This video is obviously disjuncture as it is completely random. The lyrics of this song do not match what is happening in the video at all and every scene of this video is just a load of random things happening to a family. I think this is disappointing as a classic song like this could have a much better video to it that actually links to the lyrics because the lyrics are actually very easy to link a video to.

One Step Beyond – Madness

This video is even more random than the last one but as the beat of the music actually matches what is happening in the video, it works quite well. The chaotic tempo and instrumental sounds in the music of the video work really well with the way the video is made as the music actually tends to make you think about dancing around and being completely random.