Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are

I am going to be analysing ‘Just the way you are’, written and sung by an American singer - Bruno Mars. The song itself was released in the US on July 20^th 2010 and the video was released September 8^th that year. This song is from his album - Doo-Wops & Hooligans. Simply from the name, one can tell that the album will be quite different and entertaining. This is why I chose to analyse this video because I believe it shows a variety of different dynamics to portray the genre. Throughout it, Bruno Mars ensures his star image is made and sustained. He carries this out through a number of ways but one that is most noticeable is his choice of clothing - his trademark hat, his tight trousers, a formal check shirt and his informal shoes. His style is very casual yet unique. It defines him as an individual and through the clothes his personality emits. His consistent style of clothing allows creating a brand image and it places him in that specific gap of the music market. Creating an identity is useful for him as a solo singer, as it allows him to be recognized by his demographics easily and to be appreciated in this business.

It begins with a mid-shot using tilt camera movement which slowly moves upwards from the stomach of a woman to her face - here we see the protagonist in the video. A reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body is evident here, from Andrew Goodwin’s six point theory. Beginning instantaneously with the protagonist is a technique to convey her significance to the video. She is shown to be listening to music in her large headphones. These large headphones create a vintage element to the video. The music is very loud and can be heard audibly; consequently inhabiting Foley track. This is purposely carried out in order to permit the audience to hear it too. This is advertising the song in a positive way, by showing how good it is, as she is listening to it quite deafeningly. Rendering is taking place here to convey the feelings associated with the situation on-screen. Bruno Mars then enters into the scene and disturbs her by taking the cassette out of the player. Another point of Andrew Goodwin’s theory has been identified here. The demonstration of genre characteristics is visible – he grabs the cassette tape and turns it off, disclosing the stereotypical role of a man. Indirect mode of address is visible here and throughout the video. This helps to accentuate on the romance. All of these factors immediately illustrate who the two main characters are. The flirtatious facial expressions convey the two lover’s feelings. This right away illustrates the possible genres of the song – romantic, heart-felt and joyful. All of the possible genres portray positive and upbeat characteristics of the song.

The music stops whilst he takes the cassette out, sits down and unwinds the cassette reel. Another use of foley sound here is used to emphasize on the situation. There is no dialogue at any point, which helps to enhance on the romantic atmosphere being created, as they seem to be doing all the communication through their eyes. This emphasizes on the lust between the two. The music then starts clearly from the beginning. The overall video has a very simplistic style, which adds onto the concept of 'simple love' they are trying to convey. Stop motion is visible from 17 seconds onwards. The stop motion is seen through the cassette reel, which makes it very different and interesting. The cassette reel becomes a drum in which he flicks on, it transforms into himself singing, it introduces the title of the song and it shows other objects as well including a bell. 

On the right is a print screen image from the music video conveying one aspect of its' simplicity. The location chosen, equipment and props used were purposely very minimal. Considering the title and the purpose of the song is to show how a woman is perfect just the way she is - without putting effort into herself. He is playing the piano for his 'loved one'; portraying men to be gentleman's and also to show to the demographics that one does not need to go overboard to impress someone. This makes the video relatable. The seems quite low-budgeted on purpose because if it were a high-tech video, the producers would be contradicting themselves.
On the left we can see an example of one use of Stop Motion. It was used very cleverly throughout the video. Most of it was displayed in an animatic way as if he was reeling out the cassette tape and drawing these items himself. Over here he is flicking the drum, which then adds onto the soundtrack of the song. This made the video more exciting as the viewers could visually see where the background music was coming from - on-screen medium. This idea was used throughout the video with the piano being played, the cassette recorder at the start, the drum, the recorder at 2.01 and the bell at 2.38. All of this makes the viewers perceive that he, himself, is creating the sound.
On the right is an image of Bruno Mars himself being illustrated through the cassette reel. If an object is going to be shown through the use of stop motion; it is conveyed in a repetitive way. All the scenes with the cassette involved have the same point of view shot from Bruno Mars' eyes. In the repetitive shots, the audience views Bruno Mars' arms only, the table, the cassette in the middle and the moving image coming out of it. Repeated scenes in videos help to enhance on the concept they are portraying. In this case, the main genre and key concept is cute romance. Thus, the idea of him communicating with the protagonist through drawing everything himself, with the cassette reel, is seen to be very sweet and romantic. Consequently, doing this repeatedly compliments the genre very well and creates the amorous atmosphere required.

 As the lyrics begin, he starts drawing the protagonists' features according to what he is singing about. Consequently, there is a constant relationship between the lyrics and the visuals throughout the product - another aspect of Andrew Goodwin's theory. For example the first line was: "Oh, her eyes, her eyes, make the stars look like they're not shining." Therefore, as seen in the image on the left, we see him drawing his love interests' eyes. The next set of lyrics are "Her hair, her hair, falls perfectly without her trying She's so beautiful, and I tell her every day." As the lyrics move onto this, the eyes disappear and Bruno begins to draw her whole face including her hair. He ensures that he is relating the visuals to the song. While he does this he keeps gazing upon the protagonist in an enticing manor. This is seen through his facial expressions - he has a smirk on his face and his eyes seem to be smiling as well. These facial expressions reflect on the sweet and innocence concept of love in the video. They are portraying love in a naive, fresh and positive way. Usually, most songs involving love end up to be rather seductive and the women are conveyed to be 'toy-like' items. The producer's of this product are therefore, rejecting Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze. She holds a high status in the feminist theories. Feminism is the response to society's assumptions that women should be subservient to men. Until the emergence of feminism, women were treated almost as objects, passive agents in a male world. Thus, she believes that until this feminist approach took place, we lived in a patriarchy society. A patriarchal society therefore is one where the men dominate and the media are constructed for them as audience. Although in the beginning the protagonist was introduced  in a fetish manner, it was not done in a stereotypical way. The intentions seem to be that they wanted to show all her perfection, including the body.

They used many conventions throughout the music video to portray the genre and the romantic concept. An example is on the right. This image conveys the concept through various ways - the camera shot/angle, the mis-en-scene and the facial expressions. The camera shot is over-the-shoulder to emphasize on the facial expressions between the two lovers. They look very intimate and gazed into one another's eyes. However, they are both blurred in order to enhance the stop motion in the back on the table. At this point, Bruno Mars was singing as an animated cassette reel. The conceptual idea was using the cassette reel to add in another piece of art. This was highly repetitive, which amplified the notion, to drum it into our vision. As mentioned, through this stop animation, he expressed his love for her. He creates the images himself which then start   adapting into a life of their own. It is a very simple song and video which, reflects on our personal music video ideas - this was another reason I chose to analyse this. Another key feature of the video is his voice itself. This is the main factor to attract the audience - if the voice is not pleasurable, people will not listen to the song. He has represented his voice in a very positive way. He made sure it reflected on the concept of the song. As it was a very calm, peaceful, mellow song; he ensured the way he sang conveyed that. The way he sang it was in a very soothing manner whereas, in some of his other more aggressive songs (such as Grenade), he emits a very soulful and powerful tone of voice.

This song is mainly aimed at young girls. The main key theme of the song is to show the idealistic man that most women would desire to have and the idol woman that most women aspire to be like. Therefore, they have shown it in a way where they seem to be engaging the female viewers by showing the respect the man has for his partner. This does not primarily attract the male audience as Bruno Mars does not convey this generations persona of being a "man." 

Andrew Goodwin states that songs can be seen as stories and the artist, being the storyteller, conveys it through the music video visually. In addition, Bruno Mars acts as the narrator as well as the participant (the lover of the protagonist). This assists to increase the authenticity. This was also supported by the lip syncing, which remained through most of the video, to certify and increase the realism the audience takes from it. Bruno Mars stated that he was the main director of this video. Furthermore, this is expressed in this song; many of his interviews he states that this song was written and dedicated to his real-life girlfriend.  Therefore, the protagonist in this video would be illustrating his girlfriend. The way he treats the female central character probably reflects his relationship with his partner. Consequently, he seems to be expressing the positivity within his life.

To conclude, music videos are significant when releasing songs as singles. They help in numerous ways to promote and portray the meaning of the song. Music videos are either (or all); conceptual, narrative and/or performance. This video was mainly conceptual and performance. This was because the artist himself was visually seen a lot in the video singing, which showed the performance side to it. The conceptual aspect, on the other hand, was shown through the idea of both live action and stop motion. Overall, I found this video highly interesting as I believe Bruno Mars sells himself in a very smart manner. He is aware of who his demographics are - young females - and consequently, produces his work accordingly. His music is portrayed in his point of view, thus, one would assume that the females cannot relate to his work. However, this is not the case. Young females enjoy his work due to the fact that it makes them go into this 'dream world' and want what he supposedly gives to women. This demonstrates another point of Andrew Goodwin's theory. The demands of the record label include the needs for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style). This is visible evidently in Bruno Mars' work.

Music Video Analysis: 30 Seconds to Mars - Kings and Queens

At the beginning of the video it appears to follow the characteristics of a film. This is reflected in the use of the credits both at the beginning and at the end of the video. This, in turn, denotes Jared Leto (who directed this) as an actor who would have put his film making knowledge into this video. He uses a pseudonym of Bartholomew Cubbins as director who is a returning character in Dr Seuss’ works. The first thing we see on screen is “Thirty Seconds To Mars presents” accompanied by an image of the city, which gives us an insight into what we will play witness to in the video. The use of the depiction of “The Ride” just before the footage begins is used to convey its film like qualities as well as the idea that the video will contain elements to do with riding in some way, shape or form. The initial idea of the bike riding came from Leto and the rest of the band participate in mass night rides through empty cities at night. This acted as inspiration for the video. There are two main themes within the video: a gang of cyclists travelling from downtown Los Angles to the end of Santa Monica Pier and the bands performance of the song on a cliff edge of Griffith Park which looks out over the city.This means the video is a combination of performance and narrative which reflects Andrew Goodwin’s “Dancing in the Distraction Factory” theory 1992 as it depicts that music video’s demonstrate genre characteristics, for example stage performances by metal bands in a metal video as opposed to dance routines. The performance aspect of this video conveys this.

In Goodwin’s theory it is stated that there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. One of the ways in which this theory is conveyed is through the use of lighting, which in this video is used in a number of ways to entice an audience. Firstly it is used to portray the progression of the day during the intro of the song. This is as when the lyrics begin we see the riders at night which reflects the first line “Into the night”. We are shown the progression as to indicate the passing of time and the fact that they are cycling at night denotes that they are hiding themselves in such a way to escape from reality hence the obscure outfits.

 When we first see the slow motion wide shot of the cyclists we find it to be of warming colours and yet they are muted, meaning we can tell that it is in fact a sunset as the bright colours of the day are beginning to fade. The combination of the muddy red and the dark oranges in this shot convey this. The riders in this shot are given a mysterious nature as when we first see the black figures contrasting with the brightness and warmth of the sunset we are not entirely sure as to what they are. By simply showing the outlines and darkness of the riders, the sense of mystery is being held and so creates anticipation of the viewers by not revealing the true identities of the figures. This technique is also used in the close up of Leto with the microphone. The pale early morning sky contrasts with the blackness of Leto which highlights both the importance of him in regards the video, as he did in fact direct it, and the time of day behind him.  

At night we see the traditionally lit city. Lights from the buildings and street lights are used

as well as those on the bikes as to create a natural atmosphere. However, this is shattered when we see the madness of the costumes of the cyclists. Lights on the wheels of the bikes are also used in this video as to help to light up the tunnel in the dark and to create a splash of colour on the roof of the tunnel which gives the video a brighter and more appealing effect rather than simply having people cycling through a tunnel. The lights used at the end of the video in the wide shot of the pier brightens up the video and gives is a bright and colourful ending.

As soon as the song begins the pace of editing speeds up. This is done as to reflect the pace of the song even though the majority of the shots do appear to be rather slow, which reflects Goodwin's ideals of a relationship between audio and visuals. Mostly straight cuts are used in this video, therefore basic editing techniques are being used and the video is focussing on the cyclists and the footage rather than “special effect”. The shot types used vary more than the editing. This is as the video is simply the movement of the cyclists from downtown LA to the pier. The shots are basically conveying the same thing but from a different angle. The lack of techniques used in the editing in this video may reflect Leto lack of editing technique and ideas as he was an actor so may only have developed knowledge on the production of films as opposed to the editing. Towards the end of the video the cyclists ride in a large continuous circle before heading to the pier and at this point we are shown an aerial shot of them circling followed by various close ups. Mainly in this video close ups and long shots are used with a few mid shots thrown in, it usually alternates between them. When we see the performance on the cliff top we either see close ups of Leto or wide shots of the entire band.The vast number of close ups used in this video also convey Goodwin’s theory as record labels will demand many close up of the artist, and in this case is the front man Jared Leto.   

The slow motion shot of the cyclists with the blazing sunset behind them is used to slowly introduces you into the theme of the video and builds up along with the song. The slow motion technique is used at more than one point in the video. It is also used when showing a galloping white horse which symbolises the rider’s second chance after being hit by the car. This is also reflected in the lyrics “these lessons that we’ve learned have only just begun”. The idea of him being unseen by the driver is also reflected in the lyrics “Through the blindness”. The fire blower is also used in this video and placed in slow motion to emphasise the beauty and the skill possessed to create it. It also brings colour back to the video and stands out in the darkness. The concept of the lyrics reflecting the visuals is once again conveyed here and stated in Goodwin’s theory.

At one point in this video we witness a masked man throwing flowers which represents underground artist Banksy’s Flower Chucker graffiti. This intertextuality allows for the video to have more depth and conveys the beauty and achievement that everyone has within. Other intertextual references in this video are of bikers throughout the world. The biker’s image is based largely around the idea of leather trousers, leather jackets, long hair and dark sunglasses. This video then deflects the biker image as the costumes used are almost mocking them as they are dressed in brightly coloured and obscure outfits. Therefore this video mocks the biking culture. This culture is shown in films such as hells angels and the easy rider.   

The costumes used in this video are both strange and obscure and like the use of the cyclists have no real relevance to the song. Rabbit ears, capes of the American flag, painted faces, baseball teams, gas masks and goggles are all examples of the items used in this video to capture the audience’s attention and make the video more fun and entertaining. Without these costumes the video would not be anywhere as near as engaging or entertaining. They are almost circus like and show the amusement and entertaining aspects of life. The cyclists in random costumes reflects the idea of “children of a lesser god” as well as randomness as well as the irrelevant nature of the video. This     

This video revolves mainly around the cyclists. The video would not be anywhere near as successful if the costumes were dull, basic and every day rather than bright, colourful and random. This creates elements of fantasy within the video. The use of lighting also allows this video to be a success as without the lights on the bike and the constant change in time, i.e. the progression of the day, with its various bright and vivid colours. These contrast with the idea of the blackness of the night, the modern world and downtown Los Angles. This video has been described as a “Love letter to Los Angles” as it shows its beauty at all aspect throughout the progression of the day. This video can only be guessed as being produced not to promote the band but to promote living life to the fullest. Leto liked to create and depict a great sense of adventure in their music videos, which is where the biking idea came from and they do not think of the videos as music videos but as short films: Conveying a message.

Hayley Cook

Meeting 2

We came together as a group once more. We went through the lists which we had composed throughout the week (some were quite lengthy) and we colour coded them to say which we thought we could do successfully and would enjoy to make, what we could possibly do and what we thought just wouldn't really work. We narrowed our list down to the two songs we thought would be the most successful, these included: “Scouting for Girls – Famous” and “Electric Light Orchestra – Mr Blue Sky” both these songs are good as everyone in the group knew the lyrics and have seen the original music video, which helps as we can all have an appropriate input to the discussions and developing of the ideas for the music video. 

Along with that we also decided to research pop genre conventions as in our previous meeting we decided that we wanted a comical effect to our music video. we came up with pictures, information and examples for this. By having that information, it would help us all to think of ideas to do within our music video.We then decided to come up with ideas for each video throughout the week and then come back together in next week’s meeting to share our ideas for each one, then it was our intent to select the one which we had greater levels of developed ideas for.

Developing our idea's

Above is a music video that inspired us to come with the ideas we have for our chosen music video. This was amongst our original list of ideas for our music video ideas. We thought of doing this because it would allow us to produce a wacky music video full of bright and vibrant colours. We wanted it to be as fun and funny as possible so if we did in fact do this song then it would have a large comical effect and so would be more appealing to viewers. However apart from being wacky we didnt really have much to go, so this wasnt in a definat section. Bearing that in mind, this song did give us some inspiration for other ideas on our list, this therefore gave us as a group our final descision. we therefore decided to produce a music video for the chosen song of 'Famous' by Scouting for Girls.

As the music video of MC Hammer caught our attention with bright colours and dancing, as a group we have decided that we will incorporate bright colours and dancing into our music video. We are currently producing a detailed brainstorm and plan of action, building on ideas and slowly but surely developing our music video.

Our Song Idea's

Above, is the list of songs we came up with. During out meeting we decided what songs we would consider doing and made short notes of any ideas we had for any of the choices. In our next meeting we will pick one song we feel has the strongest ideas and make a brainstorm of our plan. Considering; Location, Mise-en-scene, Actors and all our ideas, placing them on our brainstorm and discussing different possibilities for our chosen song.

Meeting 1

In our groups first meeting we first discussed our production name and logo. We went through many names, such as cracking cookie productions, mint choc chip, lightbulb films and candy cane productions (we were hungry at the time), before we settled on "Smartie Pants productions". After deciding this we found it easy to come up with a logo of smarties on jean shorts spelling our our production name. 

We also discussed the possibilities for our music video, meaning we talked about what songs we thought would be good to compose a music video for.  We, therefore, went away with the aim of each composing a list of songs that we would personally like to do and as we felt our video should include a large amount of comic effect we thought about what comic visuals would accompany the songs. 

We also set about making the blog and giving it a unique design. Due to our production name and logo we thought it to be appropriate to have a the traditional brightly coloured smarties as the background. After creating our blog and designing to our tastes, we then thought it would be a good idea to write a bit about ourselves to provide an introductory segment to our blog. We accompanied these with images of ourselves as well as a group photo which we felt we needed to show our bond as a team. 

Record Labels

Record labels have a large influence on how music videos turn out for the artist. Every label has its' own budget and its' own way of representing each artist which reflects its' production. This includes how much money goes into the lighting, editing, locations, artists, costumes, the cast & crew and so on. However, it does not mean labels which spend more on the music video end up producing a better video. Quite a few music video productions entitle very less money, although they end up being exceptionally better than expensive ones, with stronger plots.

The two record label companies I am going to compare are Columbia Records (Beyonce Knowles record label) and Domino Recording Company (Arctic Monkey's record label).

Beyonce Knowles 

Arctic Monkeys

Background
Beyonce is a very famous international singer, actress and fashion designer. However, her main occupation is being an R&B recording artist and that is what the majority know her for - her singing talent.
Arctic Monkeys are an English indie-rock band formed in 2002 in Sheffield. The band consists of four members. Their band was formed and became known to their market through the internet. They have a very niche market.

Both of these icons have different approaches to making their music videos. This includes factors such as; degree of budget, how computerized or natural the video will be, the demographics, whether it will be conceptual, narrative or performance and the equipment that will be used. These will all differ depending on what/who the record label is.

• Columbia Records was founded in 1888 whereas, Domino Recording Company was founded in 1993. Consequently, Columbia Records has far greater experience in this business; so can afford to experiment with different ideas. 
• Domino Recording Company is an independent record label, thus, do not entail any funding. They cannot afford to invest in outrageous and expensive things for their videos.
• Also, Domino Recording Company focus solely on those artists who want to product indie-pop/rock music, whilst Columbia Records invest in any genre based artist.  

Chris Brown & Benny Benassi - Beautiful People

"The song was well received by most music critics, who praised its production and lyrics."

Background

'Beautiful People' is a single released by an American recording artist Chris Brown featuring DJ Benny Benassi. It was released on March 11th 2011, meaning it is a recent production. This is portrayed in the high quality of the product and the theme - it illustrates todays' society.


Genre/mood

The genre of this song is electro house/pop - dance music. Andrew Goodwin's first point is coherent for this subheading - music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. This is conveyed through the high focus level on the actual music rather than on the lyrics. This reflects on the target audience, which is mainly the male youth. Stereotypically, they prefer to listen to songs which revolve highly around the music whereas females tend to focus on meaningful lyrics. On this note, another point from Andrew Goodwin's six point theory is visible - there is a strong relationship noticeable between the music and visuals. The music is very 'fun' and simple, which is similar to the visuals. Majorly of the fragments of the video, you see the artist and his friends simply enjoying themselves and not caring about what anyone is thinking. However, it is not portrayed in high technology - it is very natural and is engaged highly on the simplicity of  life. The mood throughout is kept on a happy note because the purpose of the song is to motivate and influence people to enjoy themselves. The main intention the producers illustrate is to have this song be played at parties and clubs, therefore it needs to be jumpy and cheerful. 
All the people being seen in the video are all positively shown to create the correct atmosphere. 


Lyrics

The Saturdays single cover - All Fired Up
 from the album 
"Notorious."

The lyrics are simple, short and repetitive; which is mostly seen in club music. An example for this is "All fired up" by The Saturdays. The same situation applied in this song as well in which the focus was deterring away from the lyrics. This was due to the fact that it was not supposed to be an emotional nor heart-felt song. The key purpose for it was to allow the listeners to listen to this song whilst a happy occasion is taking place. This is a link to the music video for this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch
v=KdtIfp7WB0w&feature=colike. 
Moreover, the lyrics are quite blunt yet effective, as they are conveying a message. For example:

"Live your life live your life
Let the love inside
It’s your life it’s your life
Got to play it right
Take your time take your time
Take your sexy time..."


As seen in the example, they are not complete sentences, however, these have the largest impact on our minds. 'Short and snappy' allows to pin point the direct message in order to make the audience understand immediately. Short sentences are more catchy and people pick up on them much faster.  The main objectives for most song producer's is to get the song stuck on everyone's tongues and to get the listeners to sing along. Therefore, as a group we would like to also do something similar in order to get our song stuck in our listener's mind. According to the social norms, the demographics - being young males - may well prefer this as they may not appreciate songs with deep meanings in them.
 All the celebrities are together doing what most people do in their everyday lives. This is to annotate the whole purpose of the song; the idea of bringing everyone together and to accentuate equality. The fact that all the celebrities/idols and the ordinary people from the streets were shown in one friendship circle, conveys the lyrics very well. "Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere I go... the only thing I see is beautiful people..." To make his lyrics  believable he depict's them through ensuring that all social groups are portrayed together and remained united throughout the video. This is a vital promotion strategy as well, as it makes the audience feel a close attachment to their favourite icons.

Edits/Camera angles

The video begins with a group of boys on their scooters, travelling through the roads. This immediately sets the scene and mood for the video. There are no special effects as for now; the beginning is illustrated through simple tracking shots. The tracking is shown to be quite rough, making the product look like a home video. This effect seems to be visible through whole of the production, as an actual narrative is not visible. This increases the realism and enhances on the 'simplicity of life'. Parts of the video seem like they were shot in a natural setting in which they incorporated together the items available at the time of shooting. This suggests that the video must have been produced on a lower scale of budgeting.
Quite a few over-the-shoulder shots were seen when Chris Brown was dancing. This was to exemplify who he was showing his dance moves to. These segments were also shot quite roughly - the camera was not steady most of the time. Carol Vernallis' music video analysis consists of many points, however, there was one that stood out for me as it applied incredibly to this video. The question is "Is there a style attached to the movement, framing or editing?" This accentuated to me the most as throughout this video, an obvious style is visible. The evident style was the rough, handheld camera work and framing. This allowed it too look like a homemade video to accentuate simplicity. 
Another point supported Carol Vernallis' theory. She states that editing will the beat of the music. This is by far correct. This meant that there was not an even pace throughout and smooth transitions were not evident. This broke the rules of continuity editing and engaged with many jump cuts, which according to Vernallis, is a clear convention of music video editing. However, the video rejected one of her key concepts which involves the diegesis being revealed in a slow manner. The diegesis was in fact conveyed within the first 10 seconds of the video. 



Costumes/Mis-en-scene
The costumes that are being seen are all casual, day-to-day clothes to increase naturalism. All of the artists/actors are wearing items of clothing that represent themselves as individuals. This is to emphasis on the theme about being true to yourself. However, most are wearing quite rough and 'ghetto' clothing. This accentuates the genre of the song and the type of music it is. Stereotypically, any artist's in the following genres; RnB, pop RnB, house pop, rap and grime tend to wear these types of clothing. This immediately places a brand identity on Chris Brown. 

The props used aren't very complex at all. Most of the time the props are the objects that happen to be in that location prior production. For example; As they grab a man from the bench, the items that are visible in the scene are all already-placed items. The shops, the bench, the floor, the dustbin and the lamp post were already part of that setting in real life. This shows that it was a real location which they shot in, using the objects that were available. A corner of a bench has been blurred due to issues regarding advertisement, thus that proves the point of it being a natural setting otherwise they would have removed & replaced it if they had put props there themselves.
The group of boys are riding round the city on their scooters. This provides the viewers with a very light, calm and relaxed atmosphere. It also feels more realistic and relatable for the mass audience to be wanting to freely roam in the city with their bikes and scooters - a common desire. A norm would be for all these boys to be riding around in their expensive, classy cars to give an impression of a 'perfect' life. This song's aim and intentions are to increase the word 'equality' which can be only pursued if everything can be relatable and understandable for the mass audience. At 0:12 seconds to 0:18 seconds, you see Chris Brown and his friends asking and getting a man up from a bench in order to allow him to join them. This is a very noble action, which would potentially enhance the positive relationship between the artist and their fans - they are being morally good role models. This will create and maintain positive public relations. This song was good comeback for him after his drama for abusive behaviour. Moreover, the meaning of this song is quite peaceful and will gain his followers back.
The location of the video is situated in a relatable and common place. It is not produced in a high classed area, it is done in the local streets. This allows the purpose of the song taken more seriously.
In quite a few scenes you see some of the artists dancing freely in the studios and the streets with their friends. This enhances on the idea of being yourself and implies freedom to do as you wish.
Another key point from Andrew Goodwin's theory is the intertextual reference to other celebrities in the music video. It features appearances of several of Chris Brown's friends - Bow Wow, Diddy, Nelly, Timbaland and others. All of these celebrities are greatly well-established and appreciated amongst the target audience - male youth. This will help to attract them and promote the song to a larger based audience.
Additionally, Vernallis' theory also states that the characters and objects may move to the beat of the music. This was greatly seen in this medium. The screen grab on the left is an example of a scene in the video which displays Chris Brown dancing this song in the studios. This promotes the song as it implies that the artist himself is dancing to his own song. His fans will see this and will conform to what he is doing.


Lighting
Throughout the music video, the lighting is kept naturalistic according to the settings' situation. This helps to achieve aesthetic effect. Since Smartie Pants Productions will be using a lot of natural lighting due to our very low budget, this video helped me to incorporate the ideas in order to use them in our music video. It helped to understand where and when to/not to use natural lighting. When we will be shooting outside in the daylight, we will not be needing any extra light sources - it will be natural illumination. Since we are an environmentally friendly production company, this idea will be intact with our plan as very less artificial effects will be used. We are an independent label, therefore, we cannot over-estimate how advance our usage of lighting will be.
As they cycle through the city, one is aware it is night time because the only light that is visible is the camera light itself. This perceptibly illustrates the time of day. This allows the viewers to believe what is going on in the video is true as it has not been edited a substantial amount to look the way it does. 

CD single cover from the album F.A.M.E

Ed Sheeran - You need me, I don't need you

This video uses a rather simplistic use of black and white rather than colour to highlight the lyrics in the song.  It appears almost as a spotlight around the man in the centre on the video and is based around that character who does sign lanuage constantly throughout the song. The use of the spotlight also means that there is low key lighting from a high angle. The use of the black and white does not draw away from the meaning in the song but actually emphasises it. It draws the audience's attention to the central character as the focus remains on him for the majority of the video. It also flicks between black and white scenes meaning that the use of such frequent changes in lighting reflect the pace of the song and give it more visual appeal to the audidence than it would without it.

The fast pace of the song is reflected in the editing. It is edited in such a away as to reflect the pace of the song and the great speed at which the lyrics are depicted. The video mainly uses fades to black and striaght cuts to reflect the face of the music. Ed Sheeran only appears at the end of the song so once again we see that the video is focusing on the music and lyrics rather than the artist.

This song is about being fake and not conforming to the "norms" so by not revealing the image of the artist until the end shows that he wants it to be about the music not himself so the video has a narrative tint of realism. The simplicity of the video reflects this. Also the close up of a guitar being played and the long shots of the dancers, which is in itself quite defined and slightly hostile, allow the idea of the focus on the music and performance and the idea that their "art" is the centre of attention in theis video.

The constant flick from long shots to close ups gives depth to the simple music video. The quick cutting and the zooming camera movements reflect the pace of the song and the shot changing every half a second or so keeps up with the speed of the lyrics and so it emphasises them in the video.

Hayley Cook

Album ideas

Here we also have another album cover by the same artist, however this is completely different from the one we previously looked at. This cover looks like it has been made with tiny pieces of pink, white, purple, red and peach paper. This stand out and grabs the audiences attention. Also another good idea we can apply to our chosen songs album cover. 

Album ideas

Single Cover from the album "F.A.M.E"

Here we thought that this album cover was a new interesting idea. We thought this would help us when it comes to creating our album cover for our chosen song. 

The way the writing is from all different magazines and newspapers is interesting and all the different colours. The artist is also placed on the album cover, however, he is placed in a strange position and this makes the audience want to listen to the song as the album cover is interesting and draws them in. 

This will help us greatly when we come to designing our album cover. 

Skylar Grey - Invisible

Holly Brook Hafermann, is a Grammy-nominated American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. She is signed to Machine Shop Recordings, Interscope and KIDinaKORNER. Holly is better known by her stage name ‘Skylar Grey’. She explained that “it represents the unknowns in life. People seem to be afraid of the unknowns, but I’m the complete opposite. I dive into the unknown because I feel like that’s where all your possibilities come from.” She explained to Beatweek that she chose "grey" with an ‘e’ rather than an ‘a’ because “I like to do things the original way". Her mantra is also represented throughout her music video as her video deviates from common conventions of music videos and portrays a prevailing message that many people within society can relate to.


The artist, worked with Interscope Records to produce Invisible; financial support from Atlantic Records which owned 53% in the stock label. Skylar Grey’s debut album, Invinsible will be released in 2012. The singer wrote the inspiring song last year while living in the Oregon wilderness. The poignant video was shot by director Jay Martin, who has also worked with Death Cab For Cutie and Wolfmother. I shall be using Andrew Goodwins writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992) to analyse this single.

Firstly Andrew Goodwin states that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. This is apparent in the music video of the song ‘Invisible’ as it demonstrates the genre characteristics of extreme emotions and reality. The video conveys how the lead singer, Skylar Grey, feels unnoticed and ignored; which results in her being emotionally unstable. Her emotions are robustly portrayed in the video as various scenes are shown of her attempting to commit suicide.

Secondly, he reported there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals throughout the song. The costume of Skylar Grey emphasises her twisted life as she is clothed in fully black; t-shirt, hoodie, army boots, and also wearing heavy top eyeliner and jet black dyed hair. The outfit and makeup are the representations of ‘emos’ which creates a gothic persona. Skylar also looks down most of the time and her body language seems tense, which demonstrates that she is not confident within herself but also relates back to the lyrics of the song; ‘why do I always feel invisible?’

A scene is shown where the protagonist is setting fire to herself, with people either side of her who do not take any notice; the framing is black and white although the flames are orange. This amplifies the importance of the iconography of fire, such as danger, harm and death whilst using parallel sound as the singer says ‘Even when I set myself on fire, why do I always feel invisible?’ What the audience see is related back to the lyrics of the song as this is also a convention of music videos. The visuals are illustrative as they demonstrate to the audience what the singer is singing about and amplify the narrative aspect of the music video.

Another example is when Skylar Grey is conveying the fact that whatever she does, such as taking pills and cutting her wrists, people do not take notice of her. Skylar also portrays that she goes to extreme lengths to attempt to obtain attention by singing ‘Even when I’m walking on a wire’ and at the same time, a frame of her is shown stepping off a towering skyscraper and walking onto a narrow plank from that height. The visual amplifies the emotion of hurt and pain Skylar Grey is suffering from, and allows the audience to empathise with her situation.

Andrew Goodwin also stated that there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. Most songs, including ‘Invisible’ has an introduction of only music and visuals to prepare the audience for the actual narrative of the video. The first shot the viewers see is a high angle shot of a lustrous grey skyscraper. Then the shot changes to either close up and mid shots of 4 people that seem distressed and unhappy and all appear as to be looking at the skyscraper. The first person is an afro-carribean young adult, about 18 years of age, looking up at the skyscraper; however the skyscraper itself is not shown. One may say he is looking up to see that he is thinking of committing suicide by jumping off building as he is stuck in a troubled life and cannot find a healthy way to escape the situation. The second person is a woman in her 30’s rubbing the back of her neck and looking down. Her body posture conveys she has experienced a situation and does not have any hope left. The third person is a 25 year old man adult shown at a high angle with DrDre Headphones around his neck. This may suggest that he is tired of life and he attempts to block the world out by just listening to his music. He looks as if he is in a deep thought about something that is troubling him. And lastly a young girl, around 8 years of age is shown with her hair blowing in the wind. It seems there is no hope left in her eyes as she may either have a dysfunctional family or bullied in school. Each person that is shown is accompanied with 2 sharp guitar strums that is generally low pitched. This amplifies the emotional aspect of the video as the music is dull and seems to link these 4 individuals together; even though each believes that they are the only ones that are in a stressful situation with no escape. As the narrative of the video is dark and disturbing, low key lighting is used. This creates sharp contrast of both dark and light colours which creates a suitable atmosphere to express the dismal life situation of the individuals.

A long shot of the singer is shown on top off a skyscraper and also surrounded in an industrial setting. The audience unconsciously realise that she is attempting to jump of the cliff due to the previous lyrics of the song and the sombre theme throughout the song. As it is a long shot, it connotes her insignificance and emphasises her triviality.

The music itself is slow moving which amplifies her monotonous existence. Visual effects is also used when Skylar is walking through a busy road, whereby the cars speed by and are progressing in time rapidly whereas she is in the present moment. This emphasises the importance of her emotion, and how she is attempting to commit suicide once again as she feels unwanted. Cross cutting is used numerously in the music video ‘Invisible’, whereby the protagonist is in different locations; top of skyscraper, setting fire to herself on a bench, walking through a busy road, however all these scenes link together to portray the common narrative of the singer wanting to die willingly.

Various close up of Skylar Grey are shown within the video. Not only does this enable the audience to see her facial expressions and consequently be able to relate with her exhaustion of life, but Andrew Goodwin also stated that the demands of record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist. This allows the audience to familiarise with the artist and also recognise her; as music videos are a form of identification which advertises the singer to the public. This enables Skylar Grey to be become a star image gradually, as her motifs and traits can be presented to the viewers through each of her music videos.

Skylar has also featured in ‘Coming Home’ by Dirty Diddy Money which is also about a character entering the burnt remains of a home, while singing about moments of his life. This represents that the genre of the songs she tends to release are about the harshness of reality. This expresses that she wants to be able to vocally express feelings that many young adults struggling with coping with life due to high knife crime, gang violence, bullying, dysfunctional family relations etc, and to be able to reassure her target audience that they are not alone.

The singer commented on her song claiming:
"I wanted it to be Peter Parker by day meets Spiderman by night. An everyday kid, who isn't really that cool but there's something else going on, that people don't know about," Skylar explained. "That's kind of the journey that I went on. I discovered that my insecurities and my flaws were things that I actually need to embrace, and I let them become my superpowers."