Introduction to Entropy and Redundancy

Entropy is when something is unexpected or unpredictable to what is normally seen.  For example when something happens that would be completely different to what you would expect. These examples are seen throughout various music videos, like people with super powers or being dressed in a certain way.

Redundancy is when something is expected or predictable to what is typically seen. for example in a rap video when you see the voyeuristic treatment of women, lots of money, loads of cars, close ups of the artists...etc


Redundancy:

 














Entropy :

Music videos use a range of both methods and they are usually typical to the genre of music, for example hip-hop videos don't usually contain much entropy, and show the typical same shots of the artist surrounded by women. But rock/ alternative music videos range from many different themes and ideas.

Example of a music video with many redundant features:

This video is a good example of a stereo typical R&B music video, due to the many redundant features, typical of a video for this genre.

The video is a narrative of what he is singing about and as the subject has a strong link to women, they feature as the main part of the video. Within the video typical to many similar music videos, the women are used voyeuristically, ad only to make the music video appeal to the audience more, which in this case is mainly men.

When the song starts the video almost immediately cuts to a beach scene where there are many women not wearing much and dancing with the artist. The video then features two main aspects: the artist, singing and dancing, and shots of all of the women he is with. The artist is dressed in all white, what looks like expensive clothes and wearing jewellery. This is again a typical feature of videos of this genre and is seen in almost all of them.

There are also many close up shots of the artist and of the women. The close up shots of the artist will have been a feature wanted by the record label so that he gets recognised by the audience in future videos. The women are seen in close up shots to look pleasing to the male eye as well as demonstrate the theme of the video.

Other redundant parts of this video are the things like the artists in a hot tub with many women and them all having water fights, and a dance routine, again, typical features of a video of this genre.

Nearly all of this video shows every different aspect of R&B videos in the past and has little or no original ideas, it is a good example of a video for this genre but has no entropic qualities at all.

Example of an entropic music video (Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly):

The storyline basic storyline of this video is that the band (And various other passengers played by the band) are on a typical short haul flight, but before take-off the cleaners of the plane (played by Jack Black and Kyle Gass from the band Tenacious D) Smuggle ‘Erotic’ sleeping powder onto the flight, and in efforts not to get caught by the flight attendants they hide it in the coffee machine.

Later in the flight the attendants proceed to make coffee for the passengers and crew without noticing the sleeping powder, resulting in all the crew and some passengers on the plane passing out and putting the plan into a nose-dive. Luckily The Foo Fighters didn’t drink any coffee and are forced to ‘Learn to Fly’ and perform an emergency landing.

The video is all story based other than the narrative aspect that the band had to ‘Learn to Fly’ when the plane was going to crash.  The video is also based on the movie  ‘Airplane!’. The basic idea of the video does copy a movie but what makes this video to entropic is the way the Foo Fighters have decided to portray it.

The band members play various different characters within the video, including obese women, pilots, attendants, a baby, and even a teenage girl, as well as themselves. Along with the crazy storyline, the characters the band plays are possibly the most entropic features of the video, due to the variety of different characters they play and the pure fact that no other artists usually do this, as they wish to be seen as cool and trend setters. It's also different to many other music videos because of the cameo from another big band of the same genre. this is not usually seen in music videos as record labels try and promote the band playing the music, and try not to attract attention to any other artists.

The general style of the video is similar to that of a movie, as it has a storyline and an end, but it also has features of a music video, as on it cuts to performances of the band and show them on the plane TV screens. So it does have some features of a typical music video but mainly is seen as a different and crazy music video.