Media Language and Representation: Music Video (Radiohead - Burn the Witch)

Media Language and Representation: Music Video (Radiohead - Burn the Witch)

Task 1:

How long have they been together?

The band 'RadioHead' were formed in 1985 in Abingdon, Oxfordshire
.
How would you categories their music?

Radio head's music genre is:

How are they represented  in their promotional material (videos, photos etc)
The majority photos of Radio head are in black and white, and some of their photos are of them during different times of their career. The black and white images portray the band to have dark music and lyrics. Because they are an older band, so they have more of a fan base (cult) that are supportive.

A Moon Shaped Pool - the album

'A Moon Shaped Pool is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Radio head, released digitally on 8 May 2016.'

Chris Hopewell - the video director
Chris Hopewell has directed music videos for: 

• Radiohead
• Franz Ferdinand 
• The Killers
• Scissor Sisters
• Louis XIV
• The Knife
• The Offspring 

and several other bands.

Burn the Witch - the song and video
It uses stop-motion animation in the style of the Trumpton series, English children's television programme (also known as the Trumpton Trilogy). The video was created in 14 days.

The Wicker Man (1973)

Plot 

Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) journeys to the remote Hebridean island Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison (Gerry Cowper), about whom he has received an anonymous letter. Howie, a devout Christian, is disturbed to find the islanders paying homage to the pagan Celtic gods of their ancestors. They copulate openly in the fields, include children as part of the May Day celebrations, teach children of the phallic association of the maypole, and place toads in their mouths to cure sore throats. The Islanders, including Rowan's own mother (Irene Sunters), appear to be attempting to thwart his investigation by claiming that Rowan never existed.

While staying at the Green Man Inn, Howie notices a series of photographs celebrating the annual harvest, each featuring a young girl as the May Queen. The photograph of the most recent celebration is suspiciously missing; the landlord (Lindsay Kemp) tells him it was broken. The landlord's beautiful daughter, Willow (Britt Ekland), attempts to seduce Howie, but he refuses her advances.

After seeing Rowan's burial plot, Howie meets the island's leader, Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), grandson of a Victorian agronomist, to obtain permission for an exhumation. Lord Summerisle explains that his grandfather developed strains of fruit trees that would prosper in Scotland's climate, and encouraged the belief that old gods would use the new strains to bring prosperity to the island. Over the next several generations, the island's inhabitants fully embraced the pagan religion.

Howie finds the missing harvest photograph, showing Rowan standing amidst empty boxes. His research reveals that when there is a poor harvest, the islanders make a human sacrifice to ensure that the next will be bountiful. He comes to the conclusion that Rowan is alive and has been chosen for sacrifice. During the May Day celebration, Howie knocks out and ties up the innkeeper so he can steal his costume and mask (that of Punch, the fool) and infiltrate the parade. When it seems the villagers are about to sacrifice Rowan, he cuts her free and flees with her into a cave. On exiting it, they are intercepted by the islanders, to whom Rowan happily returns.

Lord Summerisle tells Howie that Rowan was never the intended sacrifice – Howie himself is. He fits their gods' four requirements: he came of his own free will, with "the power of a king" (by representing the Law), is a virgin, and is a fool. Defiant, Howie loudly warns Lord Summerisle and the islanders that the fruit-tree strains are failing permanently and that the villagers will turn on him (Lord Summerisle) and sacrifice him next summer when the next harvest fails as well; Summerisle angrily insists that the sacrifice of the "willing, king-like, virgin fool" will be accepted and that the next harvest will not fail. The villagers force Howie inside a giant wicker man statue, set it ablaze and surround it, singing the Middle English folk song "Sumer Is Icumen In." Inside the wicker man, a terrified Howie recites Psalm 23, and prays to Christ. He curses the islanders as he burns to death. The wicker man collapses in flames, revealing the setting sun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicker_Man

The Trumptonshire Trilogy (1966 - 1969)

'Trumpton is a stop-motion children's television series from the producers of Camberwick Green. First shown on the BBC from January to March 1967, it was the second series in the Trumptonshire trilogy, which comprised Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley.

Trumpton was narrated by Brian Cant, and animation was by Bob Bura, John Hardwick and Pasquale Ferrari. Scripts were by Alison Prince; all other production details were identical to Camberwick Green.'

10 Things from Radiohead's spooky new video

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/blog/10-things-from-radioheads-spooky-new-video-that-come-from-a-classic-british-horror-film-050416

1. In the video, he’s some kind of official from out of town with a clipboard. In the movie, he’s a by-the-book police officer from the mainland
2. We see the residents nodding in agreement with a civic leader. This guy wears some kind of ceremonial outfit and a medal.
3. The happy painter makes a red cross on a door. It surprises the guy inside, who leans out of his window, alarmed.
4. The blond girl waves to the officer from high up in the air. She’s not on a seesaw, but a dunking chair.
5. Another girl is menaced by six swordsmen. She’s tied to a tree. In The Wicker Man, this ritual is explained (in what has to be the creepiest scene set in a library) as one of many associated with May Day: six masked swordsman locking blades in the shape of the sun. In the video, they make this shape this over the girl’s head.
6. He sees a bleeding carcass in front of a bakery and a floral-decorated noose hanging from a maypole. We’d be outta there by this point. Those things can’t be on his checklist.
7. Apples are the chief export of The Wicker Man’s Summerisle, but significantly the harvest this year is bad. We see plenty of empty cases. Someone’s drinking a bottle of cider, suggesting that fermentation is all they can do with the rotten yield. The name on the boxes is Jobe’s—or, in Hebrew, “persecuted.”
8. Our hero is led to the wicker man, a huge structure that he unwittingly is given the honor of unveiling.
9. In The Wicker Man, he’s a sacrifice to the sun god, made to stave off another bad crop. Woodward’s policeman is also a strongly observant Christian making his sacrifice extra potent in the eyes of the pagan community. The crowd cheers.
10. At the end of The Wicker Man, the community sings an actual medieval song, “Sumer Is Icumen In,” with lyrics that include: “Loudly sing, cuckoo! / Grows the seed and blows the mead / And springs the wood anew.” In the movie, those lyrics are ironic.