Riptide Flashcards
Who is Vance Joy?
An Australian singer-songwriter signed to Atlantic records
What Genre is Vance Joys music?
His music is usually categorised as indie folk-pop
Who Directed Riptide?
The video was directed by Dimitri Basil and Laura Gorun
How many copies did Riptide Sell?
Sold over 1 million copies worldwide
Did Riptide have a high or low budget?
low budget
does Riptide have many Intertextual references?
Yes, Intertextual references to other media forms like film
What is the effect of a Montage?
Lots of juxtaposing shots through hard jump cuts
Does Riptide have a clear, linear narrative?
Rejects a clearly defined linear narrative - reference surrealist or avant-garde cinema
Lyric interpretation
“I was scared of dentists and the dark”
Straight forward interpretation with a woman looking “scared” with a metallic contraption in her mouth and followed by a shot of a light swinging in a darkened room.
How is a Billing Block used in the music video?
The opening shot makes use of cinematic style credits which is graphically similar to a “billing block” or “credit block” which is often seen on film posters or in trailers.
Lyric interpretation
‘This cowboys running from himself’
Western references
Horror genre iconography
females repeatedly dragged off screen by unseen forces and a character going missing in a dark graveyard.
References to films
offer an implied artistic value that transcends the music video form.
Unusual for the genre
Riptide is relatively unusual both as a music
video and specifically as a text within the indie folk genre in terms of its style, rejection of narrative and lack of spectacle or special effects.
Vance Joy ‘Georgia’ (2015)
Comparison could be made with a later Vance Joy video Georgia (2015), which follows many more conventions.
Roland Barthes - semiotics
Signifiers - e.g. the pile of dollar bills which accompanies the line “Oh, all my friends are turning green”.
Polysemy meanings
Video doesn’t directly imply the meaning of the narrative but instead relies on the audience to build there own interpretations
Steve Neale - Genre theory
genres may be dominated by repetition, but are also marked by difference, variation, and change.
indie folk music video genre is dominated by repetition (low-fi videos with bands playing instruments etc.) which is then subverted by Riptide
Scopophilia
The pleasure in looking at other people’s bodies as (particularly, erotic) objects.
David Gauntlet
Use Gauntlett to explore complex and diverse representations in the music video
his concept of the pick and mix seems particularly relevant to the style of the video which constructs a range of different stimuli that the audience are invited to interpret. The video rejects singular, straightforward messages and instead invites a variety of different responses and interpretations.
Bell Hooks
Hooks could be used as a stimulus to explore
the seemingly contradictory messages about gender in the video.
- women running
Objectification
Women are presented as objects throughout the video
E.G. In one shot a woman with her back to the camera undresses out of her swimming costume
How many views does Riptide have on YouTube?
Nearly 100 million views on YouTube
How has a low budget influenced Riptide?
unique style of the music video has an artistic direction
What effect does the ukulele have?
Gives of a positive vibe
