Image-Text-Sound-Analyses of Music Videos

Image-Text-Sound-Analyses of Music Videos (2008 – 2011)

Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF)
SNF Research Database Entry (German)

Principal Advisor: Klaus Neumann-Braun
Researchers: Christofer Jost, Daniel Klug, Axel Schmidt

The project focused on the specific structures and the audio visual contents of music videos. Analyses of music videos usually tend to overlook three basic aspects: the importance of sound, immanent structures of music and (pop)musical contexts, and the genre specific structure of music videos. As a result, there are many heterogeneous attempts to include the analysis of the underlying musical structures into an integrated analysis of music videos. But no standardized analytical tool has yet been developed to provide an adequate analysis of the audiovisual relations in music videos and similar media artifacts.

An adequate analytical tool needs to provide options to describe and to visualize the overall nature and materiality of audiovisual media artifacts, such as music videos. Therefore, an appropriate analysis includes, among others, the character’s actions, montage, camera movements, textual elements, and also musical actions and structures. All single analytical categories must be put in relation to each other to capture the audiovisual character of a music video.

These preliminary considerations led to the development of trAVis, a music-centered web application for the transcription and analysis of short audiovisual media products.


Conference Paper: What’s That Sound? How Music Videos Create Realistic Audiovisual Experiences

Project Homepage

trAVis – Music-centered Transcription Tool for Audiovisual Media Products

more information on trAVis