Verbal and Visual Communication Elements Used in Music Video Clip
on
https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/linguistika/
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24843/ling.2021.v28.i02.p09
LINGUISTIKA, SEPTEMBER 2021
p-ISSN: 0854-9613 e-ISSN: 2656-6419
Vol. 28 No.2
Verbal and Visual Communication Elements Used in Music Video Clip
Desak Komang Kharisma Jandinhi*, Ni Luh Sutjiati Beratha, I Made Netra
English Department, Faculty of Arts, Udayana University [[email protected]]
[[email protected]] [[email protected]]
Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia *Corresponding Authors
Abstract
The recent study is aimed to analyze and find the use of verbal and visual communication elements and also the correlation between the visual elements and verbal representation with the meaning of the song. This study used documentation method in collecting the data. The data were colected through three steps: first, downloading the data from the internet; second, watched and listened carefully the music and continued to read the song lyrics repeatedly; third, finding the sign of meaning and classified the data according to their type; and for the last part, the message that stand behind the sign were analyzed. The data was using the descriptive qualitative method based on the analysis and the theory of visual communication elements proposed by Dyer (1993) and the theory of meaning proposed by Leech (1974).
Keywords: visual, verbal, communication, elements, meaning, song, video clip.
Abstrak
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan pemakaian dari elemen-elemen komunikasi visual dan verbal serta korelasi antar elemen-elemen visual dan representasi verbal dengan makna dari sebuah lagu. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode dokumentasi untuk mengumpulkan data, melalui tiga langkah pengumpulan data yaitu yang pertama, mengunduh data melalui internet, kedua, menyaksikan dan mendengarkan data dengan seksama dilanjutkan dengan membaca lirik lagu secara berulang-ulang, ketiga, menemukan tanda dan mengklasifikasi data sesuai dengan tipenya dan akhirnya, pesan yang tersirat dalam tanda tersebut dapat di observasi. Data telah di analisis dengan menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif berdasarkan teori mengenai elemen-elemen visual yang dikemukakan oleh Dyer (1993) dan teori mengenai makna yang dikemukakan oleh Leech (1974).
Kata kunci: visual, verbal, komunikasi, elemen-elemen, makna, lagu, video klip.
Language is an important aspect in order to communicate through spoken or written ways. Meanwhile, communication means a process of exchange information between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs or behavior. Chandler (2001: 10) state that visual sign represent a picture, to highlight the products, logo of company etc. Communication is also one of the most significant way to understand each other. Visual sign has the key elements to support communication because it can be conveyed lots of things through the representation.
The use of the whole elements in order to support the verbal and visual communication in a clip can be clearly seen that a video clip that has strong meaning can be used used more visual communication elements rather than the one that has no story. From the analysis of the song lyrics which contain a message, we can found that visual and verbal communication have important impact in order to convey the message of the song even though the kind of song is a rap song. Through the observation, it is easier to understand what the music video clip need to conveyed.
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Guo (2017) in Journal of Arts and Humanities discussed about discourse analysis of advertisement based on visual-grammar. The research aimed to present the correlation between semiotic with the multimodal discourse analysis affected and reflected each other. Ming Yang (2016) in Journal of Arts and Humanities also discussed about semiotic analysis. He adopted grounded theory and ethnography with applied semiotic theory to analyze the semiotic meanings of the auspicious images of Taiwanese folk region temple.
Knox (2007) in SAGE International Journals discussed about Visual-Verbal Communication on the Home Pages of Three English-Language Online Newspapers from Different National Cultures. Koller (2008) also in SAGE International Journals wrote a topic about the function of color as a sign of gender and sexuality in cultural models and how the information about multimodal text also exist. The supporting semiotic forms in this article is semiotic on social and cognitive semantic.
Thus, many researches were deal with semiotics especially in visual and verbal communication, for instance in 2016 Butchart has done a research entitled The Communicology of Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida: Reflections on the Sign-Body Experience of Visual Communication. This research used theory of Roland Barthes’ classic book, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography and currently discuss about communicology research. This research also stands an interpretation of the description of Barthes’ semiotic phenomenology of communication. The interpretation of the data showed on Jean Luc Nancy’s philosophy which consisting on three emergent themes in Camera Lucida: the unseen, exposure, and death. The discussion of these themes from a communicology perspective deepens our understanding of visual communication as a sign-body experience.
The study is focused on analyzing sign and meaning of visual and verbal communication in music video clip. Drake’s Clip entitled God’s Plan was chosen as the data source in this study. This video was chosen as the data source to this study because it well known as the most favorite world-wide and the most consumed video and song in January 2018. Also, this
music video clip reached a special history as a number one US Billboard.
The method of documentation was used in collecting data of this recent study, which is the data was collected by downloading through the internet. There were three steps of collecting data, first, download the video clip on YouTube. Second, watch and listen carefully the data and continue to read repeatedly the song lyrics. Third, note-taking the song lyrics and find out the meaning itself.
Descriptive qualitative was used in analyzing the data in this study which followed by using the theories in this study.
This study were used theory of visual communication elements that proposed by Dyer (1993) and the theory of meaning proposed by Leech (1974). There were several articles which discussed about semiotics especially on sign and meaning that relevant to this study.
Kartika (2016) wrote an article entitle Verbal and Visual Signs on Airlines Advertisements: A Semiotic Study. This study was discussing about the form of visual aspects in Garuda Indonesia and Singapore Airlines that found in the video of their advertisement. The data were chosen because both the advertisement has good visual quality and become the representative of the best airlines in Asia. There were two theories used in this study. The first theory proposed by Dyer (1993) about visual communication elements in a book entitled Advertising as Communication also the theory of meaning proposed by Leech (1974) which titled Semantic. This study chose a video clip and its song lyrics as the data source which make the study different. However, this previous study used the same theory to analyze the data.
Brent (2009) in his article entitled The Journal of the Semiotic Society of America from The American Journal of Semiotics focused with general subject of sign system. He discovered communication and culture experienced. Different from this study which chose the data source from a video clip and its song lyrics. It is also different with the theory used with this study. There are no methodological restrictions found in this article, and the suggestion for this article it is very important to collect a semiotic theory and method relevant to this study.
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Astawa (2017) wrote an article entitled Visual and Verbal Signs of Popular Anime Characters Memes. This undergraduate thesis has purpose to classified signs of meme and analyzed the relation of the text, the picture and the function of meme. The data source in this undergraduate thesis were taken from social media such as Instagram and Facebook. One of the theory that used in this undergraduate thesis are different. This undergraduate thesis used Semiotic theory which derived from Saussure to analyze the first problems about sign features in real character in meme.
Another article from Machin (2010) in SAGE International Journals the author wrote about an analysis of the semiotic used by the designers of British World War 1 monuments. This study focused to the meaning of several monuments of world war and the relations with the other factors such as political, social and the context of monuments. The review or the philosophy that used in this study comes from a letter from O’Toole’s which discussed about functional analysis (1994) of sculptures, the characteristics of the monuments and also found the textual analysis that has limitation. This study has different theory and also data source.
Okta Prawiranatha (2018) discussed about the meaning and function of verbal and visual signs of advertisement in a magazine. There were three selected data to support the study analysis of this article. The differences of this study is, this study analyze only the conceptual meaning on the verbal communication analysis.
In this study, the data used theory which proposed by Dyer (1993) about visual communication elements and the theory by Leech (1974) to analyze the meaning of the data.
Visual and Verbal Communication Elements used in Drake’s Video Clip entitled God’s Plan
(Scene 00:53 seconds)
This scene presents the singer when the music start and begin to sing while he dancing. It is also contains five components of visual terms such as appearance, manner, activity, props and setting, and analyzing photograph to deliver and support the meaning through verbal communication. In this scene, the singer or Drake starting the song with dancing and the setting of this scene was on the top of school building. However the most related visual element that conveyed on the picture is body gesture or body movement.
(Scene 02:37 minutes)
There are three person in this scene, they are the singer, a girl with disability condition and her mother. This scene presents also five components of visual terms such as mentioned above as the same theory. It is also related to the verbal communication that conveyed in the lyrics “they wishin’ on me” in a positive way even though the song itself prefer to negative meaning. The lyric itself shows that the girl and her mom really need help in order to make them stronger with what happened in her life. The related visual elements in this scene is manner, which prefer to their expression.
(Scene 01:42 minutes)
The picture above presents five component of visual terms. The picture shows a mature woman who wears a set of casual outfit, bring her paper bag and walking. In this scene, the most related visual elements that conveyed is analyzing visual or images because the scene was taken by direct way. It can be seen also from the body gesture and expression of the woman that this video clip is taken by natural ways or directly. This
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scene has no special effect to support the lyrics, and no need interpretation to analyzing the images.
(Scene 01:55 minutes)
This scene presents a mother and her son when they met the singer and they are really surprised. The mother clearly looks very surprised and shock at the same moment, and her son looks very happy to meet him. The mother occupation also can be identified on this scene followed by her son is definitely as a student and it can be seen from their appearance which is the clothes and their style. There are five visual components that conveyed on this picture includes appearance, manner, activity, props and setting and analyzing photograph. The most related visual elements in this scene is manner or expression.
(Scene 02:34 minutes)
This scene tells us about expression of optimism from the opening of the song. It can be seen an older man express the feeling of Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes pushed him to talk in this scene and how they were affect him in his youth. He gave a note to the audience who will be watched that even though he doesn’t grew up and live comparable to them, he enjoys similar taste and levels of good health as same as the person who talk about. At the end of the monologue, he give a positive note “it’s a good life, it’s a good life” that means he doesn’t need all the money in this world to feel happy. This scene clearly shows at the beginning and the end of the video clip in order to express Drake’s feeling. There are five visual components that strongly able to support the meaning of verbal communication that delivered on this scene. The most
related visual element in this picture is appearance, which the clothes of the supporting character and his style is very simple and casual, same as the other Miami’s citizen.
(Scene 03:24 minutes)
This scene presents five visual components as similar as the other data analysis above that strongly related to the verbal communication. This picture shows the singer looking into a crowded situation when all the citizen in Miami comes to him and it’s conveyed on the lyric “yes I see the thing that they wishin’ on me”. The most related visual element in this scene is activity.
(Scene 02:21 minutes)
This scene shows the singer and his partner dance together enjoying the rhyme of the song. The setting of this scene is at the clothing store. The related visual element in this scene is body movement and clothes. There are no more interpretation that can be found on the scene because it clearly can be seen.
(Scene 02:55 minutes)
There are six persons in this picture. They are a couple that has three kids and Drake as the first character from
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the beginning of the video clip. The picture shows that Drake gave them some money and the picture clearly shows their expression which is very surprised. Drake repeat the lyrics “they wishin’ on me” because he wants to help others and he knows that there are so many people need it the most. The visual element in this scene is manner which prefer to the expression.
(Scene 05:04 minutes)
This picture shows that the all the persons which including in one frame is giving a smile and other poses and expressions depends on their characters. This scene also shows the iconic culture of Miami. There are many people that stand up and give their big smiles in front of the camera. They are very welcome. The related visual element in this scene is race and nationality which included in appearance.
Based on foregoing discussion, it was found that the video clip used seventeen of visual elements and can be categorized as their age, gender, nationality and race, hair, body and size, looks, expression, eye contact, pose, clothes, touch, body movement, positional communication, focus and depth of vision, close up, special lighting and color and camera angle and special effect or montage.
Furthermore, the analysis of the verbal representation of the meaning, it was found that there were three types of meaning used namely conceptual meaning, connotative meaning and affective meaning. The other types of meaning, such as stylistic meaning, reflective meaning, collocative meaning, and thematic meaning are not found because the findings doesn’t match with the data. The analysis is based on real point of view of individual judgment without asking the writer or the singer itself.
(Scene 01:15 minutes)
This scene presents five similar visual components that strongly support “God’s Plan” that mentioned several times above. The picture above clearly shows when the singer or Drake give tuition fee for scholarship to a person who needed the most in Miami. It can be seen that he give a scholarship tuition fee for a twenty years old girl named Destiny Paris James to continuing her study in University of Miami. Drake also give another tuition fee for every single person who needed it the most and the luckiest person there. In this video we can also see how happy she is when she accepting the gift. Drake also wants spread the positivity and happiness to everyone who watch the video clip. The related visual elements in this video clip are manner especially with the expression and props and setting.
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