Goodwin Music Video Analysis (Conceptual): Ke$ha-Your Love is My Drug

Music Video Analysis-Conceptual: Your Love is my Durg-Ke$ha

Theory 1: In the Your Love is My Drug music video, Goodwin’s theory of music videos demonstrating genre is conformed to a small extent within this music video. Despite the fact that Kesha is labelled as a pop artist, Goodwin’s theory that pop artists follow dance routines is not reinforced within this music video, but instead of casual solo dancing by the artist herself.

However, Kesha does still involve herself in slight situations of small solo dance routines, therefore Goodwin’s theory is not totally incorrect when in relation to pop videos, just to a smaller extent when in relation to your Love is my Drug.

Theory 2 & 3: There is a strong relationship between both lyrics & visuals, and music & visuals within Kesha’s Your Love is my Drug music video, therefore conforming to both of Goodwin’s theories. For example, the relationship between lyrics and visuals is presented through Your Love is my Drug as throughout the music video, when ever the lyrics are heard, we see Kesha sing them on screen, however, when it comes to illustrative relationship to the lyrics through other aspects, besides the line ‘drug’, to which the screen is edited in a psychedelic fashion, the lyrics have no relation to the visuals within the music video, for example, a elephant, a tigers head, etc, therefore establishing that Your Love is my Drug is definitely a conceptual music video.
However, the relationship between music and visuals is of a stronger relation as the editing, and camera movements move to the same pace as the beat throughout. For example, there is a drum beat in the first verse of the song, and after every beat, there is a different angle of Kesha being shown.

Theory 4: After analysing the music video; Your Love is my Drug, in relation to Goodwin’s statement; ‘The demands of the record labels will include a need for lots of close ups of the artist’ which is clearly apparent within this music video, with a large involvement of close ups throughout Kesha’s music video, creating a Star-in-Text imagery as well.

Moreover, the location where the music video is set is extremely isolated with just Kesha & her love interest being around, therefore a major amount of focus is put upon Kesha, despite the variety of close ups.

Theory 5: When in relation voyeurism and the notion of looking after analysing the music video, the only notion of looking that I could find was the voyeurism technique of a kaleidoscope notion of looking when the music video went through its psychedelic phase in order to create a relationship with the lyrics ‘Your Love is my Drug’ to create ‘trippy’ experience.

However, there were no findings of the male gaze or any other notions of looking within the music video.

Theory 6: A strong intertextual reference that was seen in the Your Love is my Drug music video is the strong similarity with The Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine’ movie and Kesha’s digital animation montage throughout the music video.

Moreover, using this intertextual reference from such a legendary band could attract a wider fan base of Beatles fans, as well as it conforms to the 60’s psychedelic vibe Kesha was trying to achieve.

Theory 7:  Goodwin states that there should be a sense of hyper reality to music videos to which Your Love is my Drug definitely reinforces. Firstly, there is a nostalgic editing to the music video that takes the audiences back to the 60’s through a heightened sharpening/contrast to certain parts of the music video, the cinematography of the video occasionally turns to psychedelic mirror effects, which once again reinforces the psychedelic atmosphere of the music video and the hyper reality, whilst the most clear form of hyper reality is the use of cartoon digital animations throughout the music video, and the use of props with no relation to the song (a boat, a elephant, a tigers face, etc).
However, all these forms of hyper reality is perfectly fitted for the concept of Kesha’s song as the title is called ‘Your Love is my Drug’, therefore, just from the title, we perceive the music video to have a hyper realistic nature.

Goodwin Music Analysis (Performance): Justin Bieber ft Nicki Minaj-Beauty & the Beat

Performance Video: Justin Bieber ft Nicki Minaj – Beauty and the Beat

Theory 1:  In the ‘Beauty and the Beat’ music video, Goodwin’s theory that music videos demonstrate obvious genre conventions is reinforced within Bieber’s music video as similar to Mariah Carey’s ‘Heartbreaker’, despite the fact that Bieber is an solo artist, the song Beauty and the Beat has a recognisable pop beat to it which presents Bieber and his stampede of back up dancers (which could portray a boy/girl band visual’ to involve themselves within an variety of cheerful dance routines to which therefore shows that this music

video does conform to Goodwin’s theory that music videos present genre characteristics to a certain extent, for example ‘dance routines for boy/girl pop band’ which I feel Beauty and the Beat follows to this theory however, without the involvement of an actual ‘girl/boy band’.

Theory 2 & 3:  There is a strong relationship between music & visuals in Bieber’s  Beauty and the Beat music video. Firstly. Beauty and the Beat is clearly a Performance music video as throughout

most of the song, we see a tracking shot of Bieber singing to the camera in time with the lyrics therefore establishing a strong relationship between lyrics & visuals, however, we also are presented with a powerful relationship between music & visuals through not just only the artists singing along to the lyrics on camera, but even when we are watching the music video through Bieber’s POV shot through his video camera, the dancers and extras within the music dance and move their body language to the beat/pace of the song, in addition to the camera movement relates to the pace of the song as well. Therefore, Beauty and the Beat conforms to Goodwin’s second theory of music videos having a relationship between the lyrics/visuals & music/visuals in a illustrative and amplifying manner.

Theory 4: After analysing the music video; ‘Beauty and the Beat’ in relation to Goodwin’s statement ‘ The demands of the record labels will include a need for lots of close ups of the artist’, it is apparent through the amount of focus on Justin Bieber
through close up shots that this music video definitely conforms to Goodwins theory. For example, the amount of close-ups that is presented within the music on Justin Bieber is not only used as an advertising method, but also a act as a voyeurism slightly to appeal to the ‘female gaze’ due to Biebers heartthrob image.

Theory 5: Goodwin’s statement that ‘There is frequent reference to notion of looking is reinforced throughout the entire duration of the Beauty and the Beast music video, as throughout the entire music video, we watch the performance through the lens of a video camera, sometimes through tracking shots, and sometimes through POV shots when
Bieber is holding the camera from his view.  I think the effect of this use of voyeurism is involved within the music video as it gives the audience the idea that they are being treated as ‘VIP’ guests, achieving luxury privileges as the music video is shot in a way that would be shot as if your were creating a music video with a group

of friends, not a production company. Therefore this creates a relationship with the audience, giving the fan base a personal experience through the performance of a music video, all through the technique of the notion of looking.

Theory 6: Goodwin states that there is usually intertextual referneces from other forms of media in the creation of music videos. Moreover, references that I found that has been used as a intertextual inspiration within Beauty and the Beat is a slight reference to the successful adolescent movie; Project X,

due the same type of lighting and cinematography effects extremely fast paced camera movement with large groups of dancing groups, which I found extremely similar to Project X. Additionally, another form of intertextuality that is discovered within Beauty and the Beat is a old music video from the early 90’s by a 90’s heartthrob; Aaron Carter, to which Justin Bieber has been compared to many of times. Moreover, Carter’s music video “Aarons Party” has a similar concept idea to Biebers, with the camera focus mainly being on the artist, the scene being crowded with young people to create an adolescent atmosphere, extremely similar to Beauty and the Beat.

Theory 7:  Justin Bieber’s Beauty and the Beat music video does reinforce Goodwin’s statement that music video uses some sense of hyper reality and unrealistic drama. Moreover, Beauty and the Beta conform to this theory, however by using a not so un-realistic situation, but with a hyper reality essence. For example, it is not of a hyper real nature for young adults to throw a huge party like the one presented in the music video; however the use of the location of a water park in the middle of the night does have a hyper real reference.  Moreover, other examples of hyper-reality can be presented through possibly everyone at the party being a professional dancer, all following the same dance routine at exact timing in a casual manner, similar to Mariah Carey’s Heartbreaker music video. Furthermore, another hyper realistic

convention shown within the music video is presented when the video camera is brought under the water to when we se a digital camera playing another music video of Justin singing through a digital camera screen, to the video camera, another notion of looking and another form of hyper reality

Goodwin Music Analysis (Narrative): Mariah Carey-Heartbreaker

NARRATIVE: Mariah Carey ft Jay Z-Heartbreaker

Theory 1: In the ‘Heartbreaker’ music video, Goodwin’s theory of pop music videos demonstrating the genre characteristics is conformed to within  this music video as although the music video is performed by the solo artist; Mariah Carey, she is accompanied throughout most of the music video with fellow female dancers portraying the role of her close friends, therefore slightly portraying the overall subtle look of a girl band with the grouped choreography and dance movements performed at the start of the video, therefore reinforcing Goodwin’s theory that music video’s demonstrate genre characteristics which in this case is the example of ‘dance  routines in girl/boy band music videos despite the actual performance being for the solo artist’s; Mariah Carey’s purpose. 

Theory 2: There is a powerful illustrative relationship between the lyrics and the visuals within Mariah Carey’s ‘Heartbreaker’ music video,  specifically through the choreography which demonstrates parts of the lyrics step by step in addition as the lyrics are clearly about a ‘broken relationship’ from a women’s independent perspective and throughout  the narrative structure of the music video, there is a visual relationship to the visual performance within the music video along with the lyrics, therefore not being random, however reinforcing  and linking to the lyrics clearly. For example, the song is called ‘heartbreaker’ to which the main plot of the music video is about the boyfriend having a affair and the girlfriend catching him.

Theory 3: There is a strong relationship between the music and the visuals within Mariah Carey’s ‘Heartbreaker’ music video reinforcing Goodwin’s statement; ‘There is a relationship between music and visuals ‘as the visuals within the music video are related clearly within the music video, amplifying a clear illustrative relationship, for example the music is fast paced, the actions in the visual is fast paced. Therefore, this conforms to Goodwin’s theory that the visuals in a music video have a relationship with the music in a clear, strong manner.

Theory 4: After analysing the music video; ‘Heartbreaker’ in relation to Goodwin’s statement 'The demands of the record labels will include a need for lots of close ups of the artist’ which is clearly apparent with Carey’s music video, involving a major amount of close ups and focus on Carey, presenting the ‘Star-In-Text’ (Firth) theory in addition to reinforcing a advertising method through the close ups which could also be a subtle way of voyeurism for the male gaze.

Theory 5:  There is a continuous use of voyeurism towards Carey within the music video, reinforcing Goodwin’s statement of music videos generally involving ‘voyeuristic treatment of the female body’ which in Carey’s case, responds to the male gaze, especially through her solo choreography scenes with the slow-motion pace to sexualise the scene due to the camera movement sectioning off parts of her body.

Theory 6: When referring to Goodwin’s theory that there is involvement of intertextuality within music videos, therefore subtracting the idea of a music video being original, Mariah Carey’s ‘Heartbreaker’ conforms to his statement as very clearly, near the end of the music video, Carey is dressed up as ‘Sandy’ from the movie ‘Grease’ presenting a clear intertextuality, in addition to a involvement of the major martial arts film; ‘Enter the Dragon’ due to the comedic disruption scene between Mariah and her Asian enemy within the toilets, along with the martial arts sounds effects, actions and set design.

Theory 7: The ‘Heartbreaker’ music video conforms to Goodwin’s idea of music videos involving a sense of hyper-reality & unrealistic drama. For example, the choreography and first scene to which Carey starts dancing to which members of staff from the cinema and extra’s join in the choreography along with the exact movements, in addition to the Carey’s enemy in the music video being extremely dramatic and hyper-real through actions such as applying her make-up in the cinema, in addition as being extremely stereotypical, as well as most obviously the fight scene between Carey and the Asian enemy being extremely hyper-real with the dramatic fighting/acting.

Initial Artists

Frances Lobo

With a Motown Amy Winehouse tone to her music and vintage sound, one of our initial artists that we were going to use in our A2 Media coursework is 21 year old singer; Frances Lobo. 

We first came across Frances appealing talent & attractive variety of music on the website specifically for unsigned artists from London; www.unsignedlondon.co.uk. 

Firstly, our initial reasons for choosing Frances is due to her unique  physical image with her pink/blue hair & 60's make up which gives an major advantage due to Frances will have a distinctive , recognisable look to her to differ her from other artists with a more mainstream 'safer' look. Moreover, the main reason to Frances being one of our main initial choices is due to her Motown styled music and mature adult voice, which we believe has a major gap in the market in addition, her music has been compared to Amy Winehouse & Adele, which are both huge successes.

The song that we felt could present our poinrs and the talent that Frances Lobo has the beat is 'I Got This Thing'. 

However, through analysing Frances Twitter, Facebook, MySpace & YouTube account, she unfortunately hasn't uploaded anything since 2011, her fanbase isn't to a high standard compared to other artists we have liked at & her success and viewing audience hasn't been to a high viewing since 2008. Additionally, when we contacted Frances to ask if we could use her song 'I Got This Thing' she replied with a 'yes' , however, we continued to contact Frances after this message, but resulted to no success. 

LIA (Life Imitates Art) 

The music genre of electro pop is very 'in' this year according to the last records of the Top 40 radio charts, therefore when we came across a mixed-gender, edgy looking band called LIA on the website; www.unsignedcamden.co.uk , with their techno-dance track;' 3 minutes', we thought we found a appealing looking band with their electro No Doubt image. Additionally, with a gap in the market for mixed-gendered bands and with the adolescent generation becoming more mature with their partying attitudes, their electro psychedelic image seemed perfect to pursue within our A2 Media project. 

However, despite their decent success with their Soundcloud, Facebook & MySpace account, similar to Frances, they haven't had major success with their music since 2011, but more significantly, after 5 emails to the band , we had no success with a reply. 

Fight The Dice

Possibly the most successful artists out of all of our initial choices, Fight The Dice are a punk rock band from Shropshire with a HUGE fanbase, mostly consisting of females. Personally, we thought that Fight The Dice reminded us of a British Fall Out Boy due to their musical tone in addition to the similarity to Fall Out Boys fanbase and the bands having a main frontman to set the overall imagery for the band. 

Moreover, we found Fight The Dice through my Twitter account as they followed me a while back, therefore due to my viewing all the attention I saw this band get, I thought it would be a smart idea to put them down as a choice for our Media A2 project. However, despite their huge and dedicated fanbase, the thousands of views on YouTube & Soundcloud, the fan-made merchandise & on going success with their gigs, turns out Fight The Dice was too successful for our liking which resulted us to receive no reply when we contacted them numerous amount of times. 

After a lot of thought we decided to go for Simon Stirling as Danny knows him personally so we know he will be reliable and we all like his style of music which means we will be able to feel the music better and create the best music video to go with one of his songs, Stand Close, you will be able to find more about Simon Stirling on the Introducing Simon Stirling page.

How to shoot a performance music video

This mind map was from the short video about how to shoot a music video, in this video it taught us how to use shallow focus for effect and what order you should shoot a performance music video. It taught us how to use lighting to create a variety of effects and how to use the camera itself to create either documentary feel or a more professional look. This video was helpful as we used a lot of the different shot types in our story board.

Website and Album Analysis

In order to ensure that our website and album cover is eye-catching and suitable I have looked into the advertisement and publishing of Beyoncé. I chose a well known artist in order to ensure that I could get all I needed to analyse. 

At first glance the website is eye-catching and interesting. The dark colour scheme makes the website look sophisticated and chic, this attracts the older teens. On the home page there are also icons linking to Facebook, twitter and Instagram, having these icons shows that  Beyoncé is trying to target a younger audience by advertising that she uses these different social networks. The navigation bar at the top of the home page also indicates that she is trying to reach an older audience as there are tabs such as 'charity' and 'news' younger children of the age of 15 and younger wouldn't be tempted by these sorts of pages, it's the older generation that would appreciate the artist doing extra things on top if the music. 

The 'music' page of the website, is set out in a interesting way. The four albums are hyperlinked to take you to a different page and then to the bottom there are images of the albums. This page layout is  quite complicated, it is busy and has a lot going on. I decided to look into the music a bit more and chose to look into the album 4. This is her newest album and when clicking on the page it comes up with all the songs that are on the album, it also allows you to look at the artwork, this includes all the images that she has that advertise this particular album. The images of her in this are sexual, they show Beyoncé in fashionable clothing being a icon that older teens would look up to and aspire to be like. These photos of her also appeal to the male gender as they are sexually posed. Lastly on this page you can look into the lyrics and credits, also there is a tab in order for yours buy the album. 

After looking into the website and analysing what Beyoncé has chosen to put on there, I would say her audience is for the younger teens. As a whole the website is technical and well laid out, it is bit simple and bland so I would also say that it appeals to middle class people. The colour scheme and images that are on the website are also more aimed at this audience as they are interesting, mysterious and sexual. 

I have also decided to look into one if the album covers of Beyoncé in order to see what I need to do to create a successful album cover myself. 

I decided to look at the album cover, 4. This is because it is her latest album it was released in 2011. The front cover to the album has a very simple colour scheme, the background is a off white with dark navy writing, Beyoncé is in the foreground covering part of the lettering, this shows that she is dominant and hold the power. The way the Beyoncé is posed, is sexually this appeals to the male and female audience as for makes it is about the male gaze and wanting her however for females it is about wanting to be her and wanting to have her power and appearance. Beyoncé is central and the largest icon on the cover this also backs up that she is dominate and superior. The fact the colours are so bright and cool, shows that she is calm yet still powerful, the colours also relate to the fashionable chic look she is trying to portray, this attracts the older teens as they feel they want to be listening to more sophisticated music. 

The back cover the the album follows the same theme as the front. The sexual pose is continued, the colours are carried over and Beyoncé is still in the foreground however she is a little smaller within the composition. The back cover includes the track list and the barcode, this is something you don't see on the front. 

By analysing the cd and website I have learnt what I need to include when creating one for my artist. I have also realised that the same image is sold through out the website and cd the target audience is always the same and this is something that me and my group will need to think carefully about when creating our digi-pack. 

Noel Gallagher-Music Video Analysis

Noel Gallaghers high flying birds- the death of me analysis

These are notes that were taken during class when we was analysing the music video by noel gallagher.   The notes show what is in the video and the general themes and genres. doing this task helped us realise how in-depth our analyse of our own video must be.

Production Company Logo

This is our production company logo, Intonation is a musical term that means pitch lowering to create an effect, we wanted to use a specific word in relation to music to create a good image. Also we liked the way we could use the play on words and as we are a diverse musical group that listens to music all over the world.

Inspirations - Intertextuality

In order to get the idea that we have now it took much debating and thinking as a team. In order to help us we used many different artist and there music videos.

This particular video inspired us as we liked the idea of a single individual alone in the middle of a field. We felt this gave a powerful message, the person alone symbolises the lost artist that we are trying to portray. Also the colour scheme in this particular video inspired us to use hyper real colour grading when editing the final video.

Moreover, another inspiration that we have chosen to include within our music video has come from the Hollywood movies; American Beauty & Beetlejuice. 

Although we are not fully using the inspiration from these two movies to a full extent, our group are going to use a family dinner scene at the start of our video to form a sense of a narrative & to determine the premier atmosphere and characterisation to our protagonist. For example, we intend on opening our music video with a Christian, traditional, stereotypical 'happy family' around a dinner table (mother, father, & younger sister) , with a POV shot analysing the scene from Simon's perspective, then a revealing shot of Simon looking into the mirror to determine his individual & outcast status in comparison with his family, which relates to our deeper meaning of our concept of losing yourself in society & feeling like your individual identity is always being judged upon and compared to.

For example in American Beauty, throughout the entire movie, there are always scenes where the protagonists form a family sit around (mother, father, & daughter) with the daughter presenting a clear outcast in comparison with her mother & father with her physical gothic appearance & isolated personality in comparison to her "prim & proper" mother & father trying to create a traditional family image. 

Additionally this difference between child & family is also shown in Beetlejuice with Wiona Ryder playing the part of a daughter that clearly doesn't fit in with her materialistic, high matience family which is once again shown through a dinner table scene.

Moreover, not only will we be using the idea of a family dinner in our music video to represent how society has formed a specification to what the "perfect family" is, however to also present the individuality of a individual even in comparison of their own family, which conforms to our concept & deeper meaning of our music video which is to have the unfortunate situation of losing your personal identity in society & stating that your own individual personality is more important than to follow society's 'rules' of how to behave, but we feel this also relates to our target audience as during the time of adolescence, a major

part of this is finding your own identity & being comfortable with empowering it, therefore we feel this deeper meaning in our music video will be a relatable theme that our target audience can relate to.