"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
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
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| The Saturdays single cover - All Fired Up from the album "Notorious." |
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.
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.
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 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.
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| CD single cover from the album F.A.M.E |
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