However using
this promotion technique can become quite expensive as often the music video
will be prolonged to fit in the narrative of the film and as generally films
have a larger budget than music videos some scenes can be hard to reshoot with
less money.
This can be seen
in the video for The Kill by 30 Seconds to Mars (directed by Bartholomew
Cubbins) in which the links to The Shinning (1980) can be clearly recognised.
The whole music video is based around the narrative of the film but with the
band instead of a family. To get the mise-en-scene right for this would have
cost a lot more than a simple narrative and performance based video. Before the song starts there is about a
minuet of pre-song dialogue showing the band traveling to the hotel, entering
and finding the ‘creepy’ note which of course would cost more money than just
filming footage for the length of the song, however it makes the
intertextuality more effective.
Throughout the video 30 Seconds to Mars show
lots of different parts of The Shinning, but interestingly do not use the most obvious
parts such as John with the axe and instead of showing the small boy on his
tricycle there are scenes of one of the band members on a skateboard riding
down the hall.
The shinning has
become quite a cult classic and due to its dark nature it is assumed that a lot
of people who listen to 30 Seconds to Mars, who are classed as rock, would have
seen and enjoyed the film, making it more likely that they would want to watch
the music video and therefore listen to the song.
Slightly
different to this video is Busted-Year 3000,
This vide is no
based around one film in particular but has lots of little references to other
things incorporated into it. The first
visuals of the music video looks like a retro game, something like Pac man and
space invaders, the colours used are bright pink and green which is typical of
the retro game. This could be because the song is about the future and so they
want to show a contrast between the old times, the present, and the future.
The next bit of
intertextuality is with the time machine and the young boy that built it, this
is strong visual links to the film Back to the Future, the car represents the
De Lorean in the film and the boy bears a strong visual resemblance to the Doc
in the film, although much younger he has the same kind of hair and is wearing
the same clothes to make this intertextuality evident. They may have done this
to compliment the lyrics ‘a time machine, like one in a film I’d seen.’ However
they are a lot of famous time machines and the fact that they have chosen Back
to the Future to mimic has meaning as its seen more as a comedy film than
sci-fi and so more of Busted’s target market would have probably seen it, it
has also become quite a cult classic and has a strong following with tee-shirts
and models being sold. This means that it is the most effective to use to gain
more publicity.
The scenes of the
‘future’ are animated in the same sort of style as Futurama, which again is comedy more than sci-fi and would
appeal to Busted’s target audience.
There is also a
reference to Michael Jackson and the music video Billy Jean, this adds some
humour as in this video he is a cartoon. Jackson would have been at the peak of
his career at this point and so by using popular references Busted are insuring
that everybody gets the reference and understands whereas their younger audience
may not get the Back to the Future intertextuality. It is also quite a controversial thing to say
that they will out-sell him.
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