Real Media Artefact 2

Real Media Artefact 2
Korn – Word Up

The music video to Word Up by KoRn is a concept video. The band’s faces are all put onto dog’s heads in the editing stage. This is quite humorous because it’s not what you expect to see in a music video and it’s also quite strange. The lead singer appears first (as a dog) and begins to walk around the dessert. Already this is very odd because the video seems to have nothing to do with the song. But this technique is quite effective because a lot of people will find the video so strange that it’s actually funny, and then they will want to see more KoRn videos so that they can be amused again. This is a good promotional tool.

The camera is quite fluid throughout. The camera mostly tracks the dogs as they run about. Occasionally cutting to what the dogs are looking at. When the lead singer (as a dog) pokes his head through a doorway, there is people dancing and the camera pans along the with a low angled shot looking up at the dancers. The shot is done as though looking through the dog’s eyes. It is quite a voyeuristic gaze as the dancers are women with skirts. So there is some sex appeal in the video. Also when the chorus kicks in the camera shots become more frequent (Short takes) this helps make the chorus more intense and enjoyable for the viewer.

For the editing stage, the faces that are pasted on to dog’s bodies are definitely a clever editing idea. It makes the video a bit more fun and quirky and people will want to see more videos like it. People like to have a variety, they don’t want the same kind of video all the time, and this video definitely caters to those people because it is so different. So this is definitely a well thought of promotional video.

In the video they are in a dessert and desserts are considered to be baron and deserted (hence where the name ‘deserted’ came from) and this is related to the band because they play a lot of rock/metal and it is considered rebellious or ‘cool’ to be somewhere deserted and I think the fans of KoRn perhaps can relate to that and will enjoy the video a lot more. Also the female dancers wearing barely anything appeal to a male audience for obvious reasons and KoRn’s fans are probably the majority audience. This is because statistically metal is proffered by males probably because of all the anger and intensity that is involved in metal that appeals to males. The use of the dogs perhaps is a metaphor for the bands ‘free spirit’ and people can relate to that because everyone longs to be ‘free’ so to speak and putting the bands faces on dog’s makes them appear as though they have no worries and are just living life, which is what people aspire to be. So this video could be viewed as a ‘feel good video’ because it might make the viewer feel good about life.