Taylor Swift Music Videos anyalsis

Narrative reflects lyrics
One key feature that we've noticed in Taylor swift music videos is that the lyrics typically reflect the lyrics for example in "back to december" the setting is placed in a winter season which the audience will link to with the snow. In "you belong with me" the narrative is based around the lyrics "she's cheer captain and i'm on the bleachers", which shown above Taylor is dressed in a bleachers uniform performing with them.

"Decemeber"

Artist included in narrative

Taylor swift is usually always included in the narrative particularly as the protagonist except for in fifteen, where she seems to travel through the narrative and interact with it rather than being apart of      the story line, show in You belong with me below, and particularly always plays the part of the love interest or victim, however in this she is both protagonist and the antagonist . She also always lip-syncs in her video

 "You belong with me"

Pathetic Fallacy
Another method she uses is pathetic fallacy to signal to the audience the mood of the song. For example in Mine the season is clearly summer or spring inferred by the bright sunny blue sky, the green tree's, Taylor's sun kissed lighting on her skin and her outfit. This could be connoted by the audience as a happy song

"Mine"

In her song White horse the song reflects sadness and the weather and lightning dictate this to the audience, The camera focuses on the dark gray rain at the beginning of the video signaling to the audience the mood of the song and carried through out the song with the dark lighting. This could be something we can consider and would like to be however we can't manipulate the weather.

 "White horse"

Mise en scene
Another thing to focus on is the mise en scene. Taylor swift is usually always in a realistic setting apart from the exception of her video 15. Typical settings are school themed like an American football pitch, hallway or a school prom. Other settings are homes, particular the bedroom or the garden and pretty scenery like forests or lakes. These are typical example of what is shown in  "you belong with me" , "tear drops of my guitar" and "mine". This is something that our group will definitely decide on to be similar, it also works to our advantage as we do not t he resources to make our own unique sets. We can easily use our own school and local parks to film our video.

Taylor Swift

The artist we decided on has been Taylor Swift, therefore i shall make a general overview of how she is represented and the conventions of her music videos.
Main themes that music videos are focused around are the lyrics, which most of her songs are based around innocent young relationships, most of her videos reflect the story of the song. For example this happens with "you belong with me" where the characters imitate the lyrics "she's cheer captain, and i'm on the bleachers" the main character is performing in a bleachers uniform whilst the other character is cheering. This happens again in "Back to december", the setting is set in a cold winter season where there is lots of snow around which the audience will connote with December.
Another key feature if a Taylor Swift video is that she appears to always be included in the narrative,usually the main character, this happens in "you belong with me", "Back to December" "Tear drops on my guitar" and "mine. Also in the narrative she lip syncs which happen in all her videos, this is something we will definitely use in our production.
Another feature in the videos she uses is pathetic fallacy, the mood of the song is reflected by the weather for example  in mine the song is happy therefore filled with lots of bright sun and when the sadder moments are shown they are shown with a darker tint or shown in a dark setting, like at night in a badly lighted garden. This also happen in white horse, at the start of the video it focuses on the grey rain coming down on the window foreshadowing to the audience the sad nature of the song before the song even begins. In the video "Fifteen" the background is cloudy covering the sun but it slightly shows,  this could be interpreted as the hopefulness of the song, or even an extended metaphor of the, not completely understanding the world as a naive fifteen year old girl, therefore clouded judgement and when it rains it symbolizes the pain of the character.
Most of her video's feature an artist set however few times she is shown actually performing with her guitar, but this does happen in "fearless" , "fifteen"and change features a whole band set which our group may want to consider including to create more contrast in our video.
The sets are also typically realistic, with exception of "fifteen" where there is a typical fairy-tale mood to it as the artist set transforms in to the narrative and the graphics are made by computer editing, for example a door appears in a scene of clouds which then transforms in to a school. However most sets are typically set in houses like "you belong with me" in the bedroom, "tear drops on my guitar" a school environment and "mine" at a lakeside.
These features we should all take in to account when we plan our video.

Postmodernism

Postmodernism eclectic, it uses ideas and themes from other sources to combine them to create something new.
Its often self referential however it  frequently uses allusions and inter-textuality which gains the audiences attention by engaging with them therefore the target audience is someone who's literate of other media texts so they would understand the meaning.

One example of this is The Clashes album cover art  allusion to Elvis Presley's album art.
In this we see the Clash use the same style font and colouring plus also use a black and white in action photograph to promote their album.

To understand this there are three types of of allusion, parody, satire and pastiche.

A parody is used to mock a text, satire is to create a political statement and pastiche is a homage (celebration) of the text.

In this particular example it would be pastiche as they are celebrating Elvis Presley's great achievements in music who is commonly referred to the "King of Rock 'n' Roll" therefore its most likely to assume The Clash are paying respect to him as he is one of there inspirations and they      
                                                                              wouldn't be creating the same music if it weren't for                        
                                                                                 him.

Modernism

Modernisation is the viewed as the ultimate experimentation in media which emerged in the late in the 1900's till the 1950's.

It's aim was to break the boundaries and conventions of all forms of media which will completely distinguished itself from anything of its type, these commonly caused controversy. 

Modernization is though of elitist, appealing to only the most educated as those who were educated were the only ones to understand the messages conveyed through the media pieces. 

Modernization came to an end in the 1950's when it was felt that there was nothing new to experiment with and create, following this postmodernisation was formed. 

Preliminary Lipsync

In our group we chose to do our practice lip-sync to Chunky, a featured song on the film Madagascar by Will.I.Am.
Through out the production of this i learnt several things.
First of all it was how to use the cameras and the use of the tripods to create the desired angle which is useful to keep the camera steady and if there is no free hands spare.
This also helped me reinforce my knowledge about camera angles having to think oh what type of angles would be best and to accumulate more ideas to use for our final piece.
The area that i learnt most in was the editing process using the software Final Cut Express. I learnt the basics of the process for example the components of the software like the browser, viewer, canvas, timeline etc. I learnt how to import,capture and render our video clips. I learnt how to cut the clips, we all took a fair share on editing the video so everyone learnt the basics of it. We also learnt useful parts of the program like the In and Out points which make editing the clips much easier and efficient which will help greatly in our final product. We also spent a small time browsing on the effects we could use but this really was the benefit for our next piece rather than our current.
All in all it was a successful practice though their were a few minor slip ups when we were recording, however for that next time we know that its important to make the recording as perfect as possible so that it does not need to be redone as this is slightly annoying and time consuming.

Eminem music video Analysis

The main concept of this video is to reflect the emotions of the lyrics, its a song about about abuse. This text is encoded with numerous codes to reflect these emotions, for example the fire which is shown continually through the video, during performance and narrative, can be decoded to read as the reflection of anger, passion and destruction in the relationship between the narrative characters.

 When the artist is in the meadow this can be decoded as liberty, freedom, that he's escaped from a claustrophobic, destructive relationship, the freedom is emphasized even more by the use of the camera shots as the tilting camera and the use of it panning around the endless scene of grass and sky gives the audience a better sense of the space he now has, and the sun behind him can be perceived as his own enlightenment.

In this video the artist's lip sync in to camera which is a typical convention, however in this video but also in this video they use a broken convention, in a moment of the narrative the characters lip sync to "I'm leaving you" "No you ain't".

The video also uses the iconic image of Eminem by his clothing him in a white tank top, this conveys his genre (hip hop/rap) but also its a device used to create recognition and familiarity with the artist to increase his popularity.

Like a typical convention of music videos, the editing is synced in time with the rhythm/beat for example the edit is made when the female character opens her eyes, the next beat it cuts to the scene with the artist.

This video also does not demonstrate temporal continuity, it's not in chronological order as the video cuts between the past and the present making the audience aware that they are engaged with a text.

3oh3!

We've decided to study an artist called 3oh!3, they are a reasonably new electro pop group. They would be an ideal artist to make a video for as they're up beat music have clear beats to cut to and they're fun lyrics inspire a lot of creativity so we can explore ideas for what we can produce for our music video.

Another good thing about this band as because they are reasonably new we practically have free reign on what we want to choose, and we have a  broad selection as they have 2 albums "Want" and "Streets of Gold".

Their lyrics are very creative and fun which would make the process of making the video enjoyable and again a wide selection for ideas. Their videos are very creative and unique which also enables us to be free with our video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdB3Oyd5HtU - Don't trust me. This video is really fun, the artists play on the stereotypes of rocks stars and women in music videos. They over exaggerate the stereotypes to draw attention to this, by over exaggerating "sexy cool moves" and over emphasizing the careless destructive actions of rock stars by diving over a table full of food, or destroying the instruments/sound speakers. The women's are stereotypically shown, again their actions over emphasized, dressed in make up and skimpy outfits, mauling the men.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iWxD0GZVVk - Double vision.
Double vision is  particularly interesting and post modern as it imitates a computer screen which is obvious to the audience because it's not made to look realistic. The "computer screen" is made out of cardboard pieces and art and the artists and actors in the video make movements as if they were standing, but laying down.

Oasis:Definitely Maybe Album Cover

This album is quite conventional in terms of adhering to the central features expected for example featuring the band, the bands name and the album title.
The band are featured in the album and the way that this has been done has created several effects. The two most important bands members are Liam and Noel Gallagher. Liam is the front man therefore like a stereotypical convention he has been put at the centered forefront of the cover. His positioning shows his importance within the band and him lying down of the floor signifies that he is different from the rest of the band members, for example all of them apart from him have their attention focused on the TV.  Noel is the writer and to the audience this is coded by placing a guitar in his hand which signifies that he writes the music, but also that he's comfortable and enjoys what he does which is coded by his relaxed body language and its a natural thing to do as he's able to focus attention on the TV whilst playing. 
A way they target their audience is to associate with them by displaying their working class attributes. This is shown in several ways.One ways if displaying this is through props like the packet of BH cigarettes which are typically known as a brand for the working class Other ways this is coded is through the realistic setting, in a living room filled with ordinary household objects e.g. TV, Sofa etc. Though the living room is arguably that of a middle class background because they have improved their "status" by "making it" in the industry they don't show anything ostentatious to still relate with their audience.  
They design of the living room arguably connotes the type of material they produce or feel like they produce. The setting echoes sophistication with the plant, the bay window and the globe. The wine still connoting sophistication but also the alcohol represents their rock 'n' roll genre. Another perceived code of the globe is that its the band ambition to conquer it with their music, the view that "the world is their oyster".
They also show that they are proud of their background roots from Manchester, they were Mancunian,  and still include it in their lives, one example of this is coded through the use of photo framing a manchester city player. It also show's that they acknowledge and our proud of the musical history of Manchester for example renowned artists like The Smiths, The Charlatans, Stone Roses and Joy division all derived from Manchester. 

Album Covers

The Importance of Album covers
There are several reasons why album covers are important to the audience. It establishes the genre which captures the demographics attention which also can be done through striking imagery or artwork that original, inventive, innovative or unique as its used as a persuasive device to draw the audience in. 
It also creates the familiarity so that the audience is able to identify the artist through future releases so thus the familiarity helps to produce loyalty to the artist to market their albums.
Another reason that the covers are important is that its a method that allows the artist to communicate with the audience and send messages about their work through the art for example some famous ones would be  Rage Against the Machine's self titled album which features a buddha from Vietnam during the Vietnam war burning himself giving the audience a taste of the political messages the band is targeting and representing.

Fake Band Presentation

Mine and Amy's presentation.Final sophie amy13t1

View more presentations from Westhatchmediastudies.

Music Video and Camera shots

Films use long shots, mid shots and close ups. In conventional films all of those are used with a focus on balance. In a long shot the subject dwarfed by its surroundings. In a mid shot the subject is equal to his surrounding. In a close up the dominates the space. In conventional film the subject is never dissected at awkward points, however in a music video it deliberately breaks the convention - making you conscious its a music video, breaking the attention.

Jumpcut
A jump cut is where two sequential shots are taken from a different angle but only slightly.

There are frequent uses of jump cuts in music used to create specific effects. It used to jar the audience during the music video so that they are aware of what there watching rather getting lost in the narrative as its supposed to be advertising the song as it breaks the realism of the narrative.


180 Degree rule

Graphic Match
When you focus on something wish similar qualities to what is shown in the next cut. This creates fluency and links.

Vernallis also comments on graphic matches 

"Such edits joins two shots through shared compositional elements such as colour and shape, irrespective of content.

Music videos can use the graphic matches so freely because the genre has the reason to draw attention to its materials and production methods; the viewer can revel in an interesting edit, in a nice shape shared by two images,, and in the cleverness of the director's and the editor's works, any of which might draw us away from the narrative of a Hollywood movie. The graphic match can highlight elements of a popular song"

A match on action
Showing the same action but with different people, it creates the idea of an on going action or lots of people doing it.

Dolly Shots ( aka tracking shot) 
This is when the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken.


The theorist, Vernallis said
"More music videos make such extensive use f the dolly that a static shot seems anomalous. The dolly shot keeps the video moving, it starts almost invariably as the video begins and only ceases towards the ends. It provides a simple way for a music video to catch and sustain a songs momentum"

Low angle shots in music videos


These are used more frequently in music videos than in films. It looks like the person in performing to its audience and makes them look important.


Intertextuality
A media text the makes an explicit reference to another media text

Theory's of Audience's

Hypodermic needle theory
This is the theory that media is like a drug, it pacifies the audience. Its though that the audience would take in the ideology shown through the significant influence of media.


Two step theory
This is the theory that mass media influences the ideology of "Opinion leaders". Opinion leaders have a large influence on others in the given community. Therefore they pass on take on the ideology if the media and pass on the ideology to the given community.

Uses and gratification theory
This is when the audience chooses the media that they engage with depending on their own psychographic profile. However whilst the audience chooses what they engage with they can still be influenced by the ideology of the media text.


Effects debate
This is the theory that the media has a direct impact on the thoughts and behavior of the audience, for example a Burger King adverts is shown and after the audience is wanting a Burger King meal.

Targeting my Audience

Demographics
In my product i need to think about who the product will be aimed at, therefore i need to study basic information e.g:

• Age
• Range
• Gender
• Occupation
• Income
• Life style

Psychographics

I also need to think of the deeper in to the interests and personality of my demographic to produce a more skillful piece, therefore i need to think of other factors like if the audience are

• Risk takers
• Conservative
• Trend setters
• Trend followers

And what the image of these are and how it will effect my product.

A typical example of some demographics are shown as above.

Music video theories - Carol Vernallis

Carol Vernallis
"Quick cutting or editing on the beat"
What is clear from my research is that the music video's synchronize the images with the rhythm of the music itself. This is evident in a number of videos i have analysed for example in Panic! At the disco's music video "Mona Lisa".

The music videos i have analysed have a number of short scenes or edits with very short scenes or edits with the constant quick cuts; this notion is also explored by Vernallis who states
 "edits in the music video come far more frequently than in film"

In other theories she Vernallis states
"Music video editing bears a far greater responsibility for many elements than does classic Hollywood film editing"
"...the editing in a music video works hard to ensure that no single element ( the narrative, the setting, the performance, the star, the lyrics, the song) gains no upper hand"

Blink-182 Music Video Analysis

Feeling This – Blink-182

This music video uses several conventions first of all it starts of with a narrative. It is opened with 5 close up’s differentiated by the 30 degree angle convention of different young males all having their heads shaven in the same place. The close up’s highlight the disdained emotions of the characters as the audience can infer its against their will as the mise en scene has bar’s in the background which is code for imprisonment and disregard for liberty.

The idea of this hegemonic community is then carried on in the next scene. The scene uses all the conventions of a prison with all the young prisoners locked up fighting to break free from the bars whilst they are separated from young females who are also dressed in identical clothing made to walk in two orderly lines. The camera shows this from a high angle shot which the audience can decode as the young prisoners being monitored as it gives a CCTV impression.

The next scene uses a long shot to focus the audience on the body language on the next two characters shown, an elderly man and the young prisoner. The elderly man is clearly in charge as his body language is controlling and forceful over the young man. This gives the audience clues on who the people are who are keeping the young characters to adhere to this ideological lifestyle.

Another convention of a music video Vernallis states is “quick cutting or editing on the beat” which this music video adheres to and the musicians are first shown in sync with the first proper drum beat and the start of the lyrics.  The camera has focuses and zooms on the instruments and the musicians this shows that the music is important to their persona however they still want to promote their message through the narrative as qualities of the mise en scene is included in their part of the video by the fences and even show’s their personality from the comical props of large inflatable toys in the background. The audience could infer that this is code for what the elderly generation are trying to separate the younger generation from, that their trying to get them to adhere to their personal ideology.

The totalitarian lifestyle for the younger generation is continued through out the video and the characters demonstrate that their actions have to all be done in unitary in an orderly fashion. Low angle shots are shown of the elderly characters to show that they are in power and the zoom on their face is meant to show the angry emotion that is intended to be reflected towards the younger generation.

The whole narrative could be decoded as the feeling of the young generation being felt like they are being tied down by the way the older generation treats them signified through elements of the mise en scene of including the jail setting, the uniform and routines they are made to do by the superior authority.

As the young prisoners start to rebel a vary of things start to change. First the threatening camera angle starts to change, instead low angle point of view shots, it begins to level out and through a series of cuts develops in to a high angle shot representing the power they’ve gained over the authority.

Another code to show the breaking away from the authority is signified by the removing of clothes. This works in two ways. One is that it’s a classic stereotype of being naked that it signifies freedom, another is that they are removing the signs of conforming to the authority as they were all made to wear the same uniform.

In addition actions like climbing over the fences indicates also the freedom as they’re breaking down and ignoring the restrictions. The rebellion is also shown through the destruction of the mise en scene for example throwing down the lockers, props being thrown etc.

Ultimately the definitive sign of their freedom is shown when the narrative world and the bands world are fused together, view points from the crowd are engaging the audience in the video. This can be decoded as that the band are a symbol for freedom and liberty.