Filming!!!

Today we took it upon ourselves to get things going and go out of the media lesson to film! We now have the ability to drive so thought that it would be best to go out of our lessons to film as this will ensure that we are getting all of our filming completed giving us more time to edit! Today we chose to head to one of our locations and film there, this being TESCO's!  Whilst on the way to Bury, Charlotte and Ella were filming in the car (i was driving) whilst playing 'Cheers'. This gave us some good jokey shots in which we feel will come in handy when we need time filling! Whilst in the car Charlotte and Ella got used to the cameras so we were able to use them successfully at our planned locations! Charlotte and Ella played with angles and shots to see what worked and what didn't with the camera. To further this they also tried parts of lip sync to see how it worked and what effect it had. When looking back quickly of the footage i saw that they had shot some good things in which will give us lots of different concept ideas to add to the overall music video! i especially like on of Ella lip syncing with the wind in her hair as this looked quite professional and looked as if we were having fun representing the song perfectly as our interpretation is that we are looking forward to the weekend and having fun due to excitement. Whilst at Tesco's we messed around and had a laugh in and with the trolleys, we got this idea from other music videos such as Rihanna's other video to 'we found love'. We hope that this turns out to be as good as we hoped when we add effects and edit it together. We then continued to film some other ideas and shots at tesco's in which allowed us all to have a go with the camera ensuring we shared the roles out equally. Whilst in bury we visited a second location in which consisted of a MASSIVE hill and play area, this allowed us to joke around, once again gaining shots to play with when editing.

Today's filming was overall very successful and we feel that we are working incredibly well together and sticking to deadlines!!!
xxxx

Story boards!!!!

this post is still to be edited, we just needed to upload them onto here first! 

Monday lesson

In Monday's lesson the class looked at the auxiliary tasks in which we have to complete along with our music video.

We decided to have more of a focal point on Digi Packs and Websites as our school have been renowned for doing these two therefore we had some realistic previous examples we could focus on allowing us to see what we could achieve. I found this useful as it allowed us to begin to think about what we were going to do so that we could start gathering pictures and ideas for the tasks. In order to understand more about them we noted key things in which we would expect to see;

Digi packs

• Name of artist
• Name of album
• Track listing ( including bonus and extras such as 'behind the scenes' and/or 'making of' features) 
• Record label branding 
• Picture of the band members or relevant visual imagery to sell the song and they are often manipulated in some way
• Price
• Website
• Credits
• Recording information, producer, where it was recorded and when
• Who wrote the songs
• Logo
• Barcode
• DVD logo
• CD logo

Website

• Band logo at the top and large
• links to other pages on the website (home, about/bio, gigs, videos, photos/gallery, store, forum, sign in, log in) 
• main feature- large photo or video clip
• Strong design that might be minamalistic
• The home page would be predominately catered around a new single/album
• the use of still advertisement, videos and links
• the key is that the home page needs to be simple and eye catching, so fans are not swamped with information they don't want and can easily navigate their way around the website. 

Magazine advert

• get the customers attention
• Use colour
• Make the pitch simple yet precise
• make it easy for the customer to reach and order the product

After looking at all of these options i feel that the digipack and website will be more suitable for us as it will be interactive and fun to do! to further this i feel that the magazine advert will require good use of photoshop in which i believe our group may struggle with as none of us have used photoshop before so will have to learn many of the techniques from scratch! However me and ella did go and have a bit of fun with photoshop today so that we could get a headstart in how to use the programme and get a feeling for how it works and what we can accomplish. The previous student examples of these exillary tasks were good to look at as it allowed us to get a feel for what we will have to do and how they done it. in addition it showed us what worked well and what didnt, for example the use of big, clear, bold tabs on the website was much more identifable and looked more professional so i will ensure that we use that on ours. To extend i also noticed that we need to consider the picutres throughout the making of the video, this is something me, Ella and Charlotte are going to think about and plan so that we can begin to take pictures and gather ideas for it.

So far...

We have at last finished the story boards!! We are going to add a but of colour and then post them up here! We went ahead with filming a little bit last night in which proved to be a bit challenging...as we had planned to film at a real party it was hard for us to get the lighting right, therefore some of the footage is too dark! To further this, I made a error and somehow have not got the clip where charlotte is lip syncing to the music so I must of not have pressed record or something! This is something we need to look out for in the future!!! After looking back at the footage i feel we need to re shoot some stuff as it is a bit dark which may effect the overall look of the video! Charlotte, Ella and I will go through the recorded footage and see what we could do to improve it to ensure we have good clips for when it comes to editing! However for our first shoot I feel we worked well and all participated so were pleased with our efforts! Also we love the new cameras! The image quality is better allowing us to pic up more detail. Also they are very handy and easy to work (when I'm not being an idiot and not pressing the right button that is!).

My other blog....

http://smarturban17.blogspot.com/

I have now changed groups due to the beneficial matters working with Sophie and Charlotte, as i feel i will have a lot more support in my contributions and ideas. Sophie also lives very near to me, so it will become much easier for us both as we are able to work more outside of school. Futhermore, Sophie and i can drive so this can also benefit us along the way of production so we can travel to the different locations, and we can pick charlotte up on the way ....

This is my previous blog, with all of my audience research and planning on it so i can reference back to the different ideas i came up with. Then as we are currently writing up our story boards, I am able to go back to the posts such as the student examples to contribute some of the ideas.

During my first lesson in their media lesson, I contributed within the group to come up with some of the ideas for the story board. As we were struggling on thinking of lots of random ideas we could place in each boz, I thought that each time the chorus plays, we could turn that into a mini-narrative of Charlotte and Josh forming a 'bond' which starts at the party which is in the opening scenes. So there includes 4 sections of the chorus, so we thought it could be futhering each time, such as the first time it could be they met, then the second would be that we randomly meet each other down the street, then the third would be that whilst Charlotte was rollerskating at Curve Motion, she 'fell over' and Josh coincidently came along and picked her up from the floor. Then the last time we see them would be them either in the cinema, at a meal etc just to show the relationship moving upwards.

As the 'bridge' is included in the majority of the song, where is goes "yeah-e-yeah, yeah-e-yeah, yeah-e-yeah..." We have thought of several ideas, in which involve split screening the shot to show the different scenes and action taking place.

We are doing very well with the story boarding at the moment as we have nearly finished already.... So we are able to get on with the filming very soon!!

NEW MEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In todays lesson....... we have a new member..... Ella!!!!!!!!! We've been joining each others idea and finalising our story boards in order to  complete our planning stage. Once we have this all done we will progress onto filming in which we hope our first date to shoot will be this Saturday! We have chose to shoot this Saturday as it ensures that we are keeping to our deadlines and that we have a great amount of time for editing.

We hopefully will have gotten our story boards finished this week so we are able to start filming as soon as possible ......WITH NEW CAMERAS

p.s ITS CHARLOTTES BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!! 18!!!!!!!!!!

XXXXXXXX

ahh

I'm having a bit of trouble with getting another student's example onto my blog post but I will definitely have it up by Monday when I understand how to do it :)

What is the purpose of a music video?!

In this post I will be looking at what I believe and also what others believe are the reasons for there being music videos to accompany the song!

I believe that music videos are there to promote not only the song, but also the artist/band.

Through showing the music video in the media, people can therefore acknowledge whether they like it or not. Having the visuals as well as the music, it helps the audience to piece them together and see if they fit well with eachother, and therefore gives them an idea if they think the whole concept of the song is good or not.

If people like the music video then this is a good thing because they are therefore more likely to buy the song and share it with the people that they know, which ends up with people spreading the word about how well this music video is. 

On the other hand, people might not like the song. Eventhough this may be the case, people will still talk about the song and they will share it with other people. Promoting the song, music video and the artist/band is all about getting it out to the audience and making sure as many people know about it as possible!

I also found that people think music videos are there to "give more of a message than just the artist/band performing with lyrics that mean something." This means that the music video shows visuals that can link to the lyrics, and therefore giving the audience a deeper understanding of what the lyrics mean in the song and also what the artist is trying to get across in their song to their audience. 

The following are also reasons as to why music videos exist and what their purposes are:

- Entertainment;

- Used as a marketing device;

- To attract different types of audiences;

- To emphasise what the artist can do in terms of performing.

In our music video we will make sure that it has a purpose and that we understand what we have to do in order to ensure our ideas have all been incorporated into our music video.

:)

LYRICS!

Just thought I would do a quick post to show the lyrics of the song we will be using for our music video! These lyrics will then be linked to the images that are on our storyboards which should be up shortly :)

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah

Cheers to the freaking weekend
I drink to that, yeah yeah
Oh let the Jameson sink in
I drink to that, yeah yeah
Don’t let the bastards get you down
Turn it around with another round
There’s a party at the bar everybody put your glasses up and
I drink to that, I drink to that, I drink to that
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)

Life’s too short to be sitting around miserable
People gonna talk whether you doing bad or good, yeah
Got a drink on my mind and my mind on my money, yeah
Looking so bomb, gonna find me a honey
Got my Ray-Bans on and I’m feeling hella cool tonight, yeah
Everybody’s vibing so don’t nobody start a fight, yeah-ah-ah-ah
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)

[Chorus]
Cheers to the freaking weekend
I drink to that, yeah yeah
Oh let the Jameson sink in
I drink to that, yeah yeah
Don’t let the bastards get you down
Turn it around with another round
There’s a party at the bar everybody put your glasses up and
I drink to that, I drink to that
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)

‘Bout to hop on the bar, put it all on my card tonight, yeah
Might be mad in the morning but you know we goin hard tonight
It’s getting Coyote Ugly up in here, no Tyra
It’s only up from here, no downward spiral
Got my Ray-Bans on and I’m feeling hella cool tonight, yeah
Everybody’s vibing so don’t nobody start a fight, yeah (yeah yeah)

[Chorus])
Cheers to the freaking weekend
I drink to that, yeah yeah
Oh let the Jameson sink in
I drink to that, yeah yeah
Don’t let the bastards get you down
Turn it around with another round
There’s a party at the bar everybody put your glasses up and
I drink to that, I drink to that
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)

Cheers to the freaking weekend
I drink to that, yeah yeah
Oh let the Jameson sink in
I drink to that, yeah yeah
Don’t let the bastards get you down
Turn it around with another round
There’s a party at the bar everybody put your glasses up and
I drink to that, I drink to that, I drink to that, I drink to that
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)

And I drink to that

ALSO! here is the music video that already goes with this song...

Digi-packs from previous students!

As Sophie has already explained digi-packs are the covers on a CD. They are used to protect the CD but also to show the different songs that are on the CD and also a vision of what the artist/band look like or what they feel the album represents. Here are a few examples of digi-packs that previous students have made:                      

                                   

This particular digi-pack is good because it shows the artist in the pictures. This helps the audience to get to know who the artist is and therefore then link them with the songs that are on the CD to understand what the artist's genre is and what they are all about. 

In this digi-pack I believe that the pictures show a lot about the songs that are on the CD. From looking at this I can see that the song will be quite slow because the pictures are of the artist on their own in the frame. Whereas, if this song had have been fast and upbeat then I believe the pictures would have had more people in the frame and it would be more lively. On the down side, the far right picture where it has the writing, it is hard to read and therefore when making our digi-pack I think we should make sure that everything in the pictures are clear in what they are meant to show, and that everything can be read with ease. 

Lastly, I believe that this digi-pack is the most effective because it looks like it has could be a real digi-pack for a real artist's CD cover. The thing that I like most about it is that the lighting and colour has been changed into a sepia tone, which I believe is very effective in making a mood that is to be shared with the audience through the songs. Also the writing on the third picture looks good because it has been played around with so it is edgy and different from normal fonts. 

When making our digi-pack I believe we should focus mainly on the colours of the pictures and also in making sure the songs can be read on the pictures. Also, the digi-pack has to reflect the song that is on the CD so we will have to come up with a few ideas whilst we are in the making stage of the music video. 

Rihanna's audience!

In order to understand who our target audience is we thought it would be a good idea to look at rihanna's target audience as this would be similar to ours due to the fact we are using one of her songs! In order to find out more about her audience we thought we would look in magazines at her style , clothes, and general overlook! We created a poster of what we found,

These pictures show's the clothes and style in which Rihanna has adopted, this allows us to stereotype her audience as they will have a similar style to which Rihanna has. This will form a cliche in which we can look for to define her audience. We found that rihanna likes to 'push the boat out' and try new things such as her hairstyle. 

Research into websites :)

http://www.rihannanow.com/

The above are a few shots from Rihanna's website. 

These shots show us what should be included on the website, such as:

• Tour dates.
• Photo galleries.
• The different songs the artist have produced. 
• How to contact/send fan-mail to the artist.
• Biography.
• Shop to buy merchandise.
• What is going on with the artist at the moment, such as when their new album is going to come out etc. 
• Video clips of the artist on tour/making the music videos. 

This gives us an idea of what type of things we should include on our own website when we make our music video. We could include tour dates, the making of the music video and  a photo gallery. 

Locations.

Here are a few ideas of what locations we are going to use:

• Curvemotion. (1st shot with loads of people skating around & 2nd shot we will ask if we can use the place when it is empty).
• Madame Tussauds.
• Streets of London.
• Outside the house and then walking into a house where a party is. 
• A house with a gravel drive. 

The top two locations we would like to use, we will have to ask for permission if we can use them. 

The reason for this is that we do not know whether they allow people to film in the area. We will have to phone the place up or go visit them to see if they will allow us to do this. In Madame Tussauds they have a wax work of Rihanna which we would  like to incorporate in our music video. Hopefully we will be able to use all of these locations and some more locations will be added soon. 

Roles!!

In order to achieve the best and have the most done we normally allocate roles within the group ensuring that everyone had something to and get on with. However we don't think this is needed as much this year as there is only two of us! We feel that we work closely together and ensure that we both share the work load so there is no real need for specific roles and we will be contemplating with each other throughout! We will however be blogging what we each do each session!

Story Boards!

In todays lesson charlotte and I are trying to start the story boards. We have had a few ideas in which we want to include in the film but are yet to have an order. At the moment we are trying to sort out a beginning to the video. As soon as we have got that sorted we will be able to put all of our other ideas to the storyboard and see the whole video come together. Completing a story board will help us with shot lists, locations, props etc. This will also allow us to know what shots to film on what day and at what location. 


Charlotte and Sophie, x

Last lesson!

In the last lesson Sophie was unfortunately ill so I wasn't able to speak to her about any new ideas for our music video but I came up with an idea to get some ideas from our audience.

I thought that because only media students have a look at our blogs, most of our audience will not be able to look and complete our polls. So...

I copied our poll on our blog and then printed them off for people to fill in. The following picture shows the question I asked...

These two songs are the songs that we would like to use for our music video because they both fit in with the idea that we have, and we want to know what our audience will like better. The answers and results from this poll will be put on here soon! :) 

What makes a music video..

I'm just getting a few ideas of what needs to be included in our music video or some ideas of what we could use!
I looked at the codes and conventions of a usual music video and the following is what I found:

• The artist can be shown performing;

Music videos have become an essential way for artists and musicians to get audiences to hear and experience their music. Instead of just making a music video with the music and the lyrics, performance music videos show the band performing on stage or in another venue which they can show their audience their experiences and their music. It is also a great way to promote the band and their music because the audience can then relate to the band by seeing them and they can also understand how the songs and music should be performed, instead of just hearing it on a CD.

• The lyrics of the song influences what is shown in the video;

As it shows in the picture to the left, Taylor Swift is drawing a love heart. When she draws this, the lyrics say "the other on my heart". This is a good example of how the lyrics can be linked to the visuals. Some artists prefer their lyrics to match the visuals and therefore takes the lyrics as inspiration for their music video. Usually, the words that are sung in the song come up in the form of an object in the music video, for example, if the artist sung about their friends coming in through the door, the visuals would show this exactly as it says in the song. I believe this helps the audience to understand the lyrics better and not become confused as to what they mean. In our music video, we think we may use  a hint of matching the lyrics to the visuals, such as when the lyrics say "drink to that" we may use people drinking, but we have decided that we are not going to advertise drinking alcohol, but we will look at it from another view of taking the mick out of drinking by using fruit shoot bottles for example. This will all become clear when we have made out music video. 

• The pace of editing fits with the pace of the music;

This music video shows exactly how editing can fit in with music in the song. Most music videos with fast paced music are edited quickly so the pace of the editing matches the pace of the music. This makes the music video seem like it flows more instead of jumping from one shot to another when it is not in time with the song. In this particular music video it links the editing and the music together a lot, for example, when Labrinth's name is in the air, it is edited so that when the music goes louder than it was, and does a sort of 'boom' noise, his name disappears at the same time, which shows a clear link between the editing and music. It also gives the some a stronger feel to it because it is more effective than if there was not much happening in both the song and the editing. Also, in some parts of this music video, it includes animated bits and special effects such as the speakers in the air. When the beat of the music changes, so do the position of the speakers. I think that this technique of fitting the editing in with the music of the song is effective and gives the song a more upbeat feeling.

These have all given me ideas about how our own music video should look like, and what it should include. I think that all three of these aspects of a music video could help any music video to be successful and give it an edge in contrast to what other music videos look like,and include. The fitting of the editing to the music seems like it will make the song flow easier and the matching the lyrics to the visuals seems to be essential in making sure the audience know what the song and the lyrics are about.

What we've done today!

ITS QUESTONNAIRE TIME! :)

Today we made a questionnaire to ask our target audience about what type of music videos they like, why they like them and what they expect to see in music videos.

We've collected the results and looked to see what our target audience came up with.

The age group in which we asked was 16-20 because we believe that for the type of song we want to do a music video for, this is the appropriate age to target.

One of the first questions we asked was what are people's favourite music video genre.

Here are the results from this particular question:

Pop - 1

R&B - 8

Hip-hop - 2

Classical - 0

Rock 1

Indie - 2

From this we can see that most people like to listen to R&B music. This is good because Rihanna is a R&B artist and this is who we would like to focus our music video on by using one of her songs. Teenagers are mostly introduced to R&B music because they are always on the radio and in the charts, which shows why R&B was most popular in this questionnaire. R&B music videos are also really good and we have decided that we would like to follow the codes and conventions of this genre type in our music video.

The second question we asked was where people get their music from?

Internet - 6

High-street shops - 0

Download - 3

Itunes - 4

Other - Spotify

As it shows by the results, most people get their music from the internet. The people from the questionnaire did not specify whether they downloaded it off the internet or if they just watched the videos but it shows that most people use the internet to find their music. This gives us a great knowledge on where to target our audience. For example, when we have filmed our music video we will be able to upload it onto YouTube where a lot of people will be able to access and watch our video.

Our third question was which gender most people like to see featured in the music videos. Here are the results:

Male - 0

Female - 6

A mixture of the two - 8

This shows that most people are not worried which gender they see in music videos or they like to see both in the music videos at the same time. This is a good thing for Me and Sophie because we would like a female lead singer because our music video is focused on Rihanna's songs. Also, the answer that was preferred was a mixture of both genders. We think this is a good idea to have a mixture of the two in the backgroung of our music video, with the lead singer being a female.

The fourth question was which type of video people like best. Here are the results:

Narrative - 4

Concept - 2

Performance - 8

This shows that most people tend to like the music videos where people perform on the stage or perform in another way during the video. Most people we asked did not know what the type of music video 'concept' was. We had to explain what it was to a few of them which could be the reason why this type of music video was the least popular in our questionnaire. People tended to like the idea of there being a storyline in the music video, and when we asked them why they mentioned that it was because they were able to understand what the lyrics of the song meant by looking at the visuals in the music video. The idea we have for our music video is a little bit concept but it also had aspects of a storyline running through it, and it also has a bit of performance in it. By tying these three together I believe that the music video will get views from different types of people because they will all be able to see a part of the music video that they like, whether it be the performance part, the use of effects or the storyline running through it. 

The fifth question we asked was what people thought of the song Rihanna - Cheers (Drink To That)

Here are some of the comments we received from our questionnaires:

It's OK.

Average.

It makes people think of the weekend.

It's a great tune. 

Sick.

It's a bit boring/annoying.

From these comments we can see that people are not too fond of the song, and I believe that the reason for this is because it has been out for a long time and everyone has been getting bored of it. After looking at these comments we wondered if we should change our song because people do not find it good, and we were looking at other songs that may fit in with the idea that we have already got. 

The sixth question was what people thought of the Beyonce - Single Ladies video. Here are some of the comment we received from the questionnaire:

It's pretty cool.

Poor video. 

Good dance. They all wear black leotards and white background so it goes well together. 

Good idea for a music video!

Very iconic.

It would be hard to recreate it as well as the original.

The reason we asked this question was because it was a concept idea, and it was very different to the usual music videos out there at the time it was released. We wanted to gain knowledge from this question on whether people like concept ideas and whether we should use this music video idea in our own idea for the music video. From these comments we can see that this video is really good and a lot of people like it. Even though it is only of three ladies dancing around the room to the song, everyone liked that it was different to other music videos. From the comment "They all wear black leotards and there is a whit background, so it goes well together" we could see that the clothing of the people in the music video, and the props and background of the music video is very important in making the music video work. If the colours would have clashed then it would have looked bad, whereas, they had thought about every aspect of the music video and how it will all fit in together well. This is what we will have to think about when we are planning and making our own music video. 

The last question we asked was what were people's favourite music videos to get an idea on what type of music they were into. There were many different types of music videos that were given as answers to this question including:

Ed Sheeran - A Team

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

The Wombats - Tokyo

Beyonce - Best Thing I Never Had

Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song

Lady Gaga & Beyonce - Telephone

From these we can see that there is a wide variety of music videos that people like but the two that interested me was OK Go! - Here It Goes Again and Lady Gaga & Beyonce - Telephone. The reason for this is because they are both concept ideas and they were both really successful, which gives me the idea that maybe we should use a concept idea for our music video, or use a slight hint of concept in our music video somewhere. 

Digi Packssssssssssssssssssssssssss

What is a digi pack?

A digi pack in simple words is a case for a CD, DVD or BD.  It provides a protective package to the CD so that it doesnt get scratched or broken as this would not be a successful product. The protective case allows it to be kept safe resulting in reuse.

Features of a digipack

• Outer binding- this may be card or paperboard. This is normally in a stlye of a gatefold (a book). This is where the information, and design of the song/albulm/band is. Making it more attractive and eye catching to the audience.
• Plastic Trays- this is where the CD is held and kept. somes digipacks include more than on CD so will have multiple trays.

Examples of Digipacks

Goodwins Theory

In 1992, Andrew Goodwin publiched a book called 'dancing in the distraction factory'  after years of research into music videos. Goodwin took it upon himself to find out more about music videos and what they are about. In this book he came up with a number of codes and conventions for music videos. He worked out a range of elements in whcih music videos all have in common. finalising with 7 rules of music videos in which were;

1. Music videos demonstrate certain genre characteristics
2. there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals
3. there is a relationship between music and visuals.
4. the demand of the record label will incluide the need for lots of close-ups of the artist.
5. the artist may develop motifs or iconography that reocur across their work (a visual style.)
6. There is fequent reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, filming, cameras) and particularly voyeristic (pleasure through looking) treatment of the feamle body.
7. there are often intertextual references- mostly to film, television and popular culture.

'Why does love do this to me' - The exponents

Why does love do this to me is a famous and well known new zealand song in which we got given for a task within a lesson. We had to film a short music video within class demonstrating our ability to lip sync, split screen etc. This task was done so that we could improve on our final cut skills so that we were able to use them to the best of our ability when it came to our real music video.



This video is however unfinished as we had planned to put many effects on it but simply did not have the time to do so. I feel that this video did allow us some vital practise and i feel that we have been quite successful in doing this.

The lip sync matches quite well despite the fact we have a female lead when the song is originally sung by a man, we were not worried by this as it was the precision in the lip sync in which we were more interested in.

The split screen is very successful as there is no visible line. This shows improvement from mine and charlottes first experiment as there is a line where the images have not been put together precisely. I feel that this is an important technique to develop as when it is done well it is very interesting and adds to the video.

Final Cut Experiment

The following video is when we edited some footage we shot in order to have a play around with Final Cut Express.

From this we were able to develop our final cut express skills and it will help us to know how to edit our music video successfully. For example we played around with the colours of the image and we also attempted to do split screen where it shows one person being edited and the rest of the people moving normally. 

By Charlotte (could not get on my Blogger account)

Beyoncé's music video :)

I could probably sit here all night talking about all of the different music videos that Beyoncé has made for her songs because there are so many. They are all really good and unique such as "Single Ladies - Put a ring on it" where throughout the video she does is dance in a room with two other people, but I have decided to look at Beyoncé's music video, "Irreplaceable". 

Beyoncé Knowles' and Ne-Yo's vision was to create a record that people could relate to, regardless of their gender. Lyrically, the song refers to breaking up with an unfaithful man and it contains a message towards female empowerment.


The following quote is what most people think Beyonce is..
"She has an amazing voice, she's a great dancer,she writes her own music, she is beautiful, and she is very level headed for a person with her success."
I believe her music videos mirror this definition of her because they show that she is a strong women and can look after herself. Also, she uses all of her talents in her music videos to show that she is a triple threat. 


Goodwin's seven.

1. Music videos demonstrate certain genre characteristics.


Beyoncé's general genre of music is R&B which tends to have genre characteristic in music videos of highlighted sex appeal in women. Beyoncé tends to demonstrate this particular genre characteristic in her music videos, and in Irreplaceable she wears clothes that represent this such as a dress and a cropped top. In the music video Irreplaceable she does not highlight the sex appeal as much as she does in her other videos such as "Best Thing I Never Had" where, at the start of the music video, she wears not too revealing nightwear which shows off her curves, but is still stylish, with her hair up and her make-up done.


However, Beyonce is portrayed as powerful women whereas, the characteristic of a female in a R&B music video is that they are used as props instead of someone who is taking charge and standing up for themselves. Another genre characteristic that Beyoncé shows in her music video Irreplaceable is the use of close-ups. Throughout the music video, the camera closes in on Beyoncé when she is singing and saying certain words. Beyoncé uses this in almost all of her music videos constantly because it is a big R&B music video characteristic. The following music video of Beyoncé's is a good example:

This music video is her new one called "Countdown". There are many close-ups of Beyoncé singing and acting out the lyrics to show that she is the main focus of the music video.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.



As it shows on the right, Beyoncé links the visuals in her music videos to the lyrics. For example, it shows Beyoncé performing and singing "To the left, to the left" at the same time. This is a prime example of relating the visuals to the lyrics. Another example of this in the music video Irreplaceable is when Beyoncé says "it's my name that's on that tag". At this point she points at her chest indicating that she is referring to herself in the song lyrics. Beyoncé also relates the lyrics to the visuals in her other songs, such as "Run The World". In this, when Beyoncé and the rest of the dancers/singers say 'girls' the visuals on the screen shows a long line of women with soldier type outfits on, which also links in with the girls running the world.


3. There is a relationship between music and visuals.


This video shows a relationship between the music and the visuals because there the music in the background is quite slow, which goes well with the fact that the visuals are of the people in it being quite laid-back. Also, throughout the music video, Beyonce moves in time with the music. For example, when she is walking outside, her hair bounces and she also walks in time with the beat. This shows a clear link between the music and visuals. 


4. The demand of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist.


The video Irreplaceble by Beyonce certainly shows a lot of close-ups of Beyonce throughout the video. By having close-ups of Beyonce, it will make it obvious that the song is by her and this will therefore increase the amount of money made from the song. Audiences and fans of Beyonce will be able to relate to the video because they will see Beyonce throughout the video, and because they will have liked her other music videos, they would also notice that it is her and would make them watch the video because of this. By doing this it will help Beyonce be promoted and the record label will be happy with how the music video uses Beyonce as the main focus. Other music videos may not even feature the artist or the band and would therefore not promote them as much as it would if they had have taken part in the music video. 

 5. The artist may develop motifs or iconography that recur across their work.


Beyonce shows that she is a strong women throughout all of her videos, and she focusing on the performance of her songs, but not in the case of performing it on stage, but instead, she performs through dance or acting. For example, in one of her music videos - Single Ladies she performs a dance with two other ladies and in another music video - If I Were A Boy she performs through a narrative of her and a man. Also, in this video it is in black and white which she also uses in other music videos of hers, where they are mainly music videos that have a narrative behind them. I believe this is to focus on the song and the meaning behind the lyrics, whereas when it is in colour, it invited the audience to take notice of the visuals more than the lyrics. 


Another thing that recurs across Beyonces work is the lyrics being about love and relationships, especially in her earlier work. The music video Irreplaceable is a prime example of this. Most R&B songs are about love and relationships which shows she also follows this characteristic of this certain genre, but she also does different types of songs where she can have fun in the music videos and try new things and work with effects, such as on her new music video - Countdown, she is shown three times on the screen at once in three different outfits and she is also shown in 4 different places on the screen through the effect of split screen. This shows that Beyonce does not stick to one type of music video but she explores different ways of making the visuals strong and eye-catching. 

6. There is frequent reference to the notion of 'looking' (screens within screens, filming, cameras) and particularly voyeuristic (pleasure through looking) treatment of the female body.


Beyonce does not conform to the genre characteristic of a female in a R&B music video. Women are usually seen as being "trophies", "eye candy", "sexual objects" and "the property of males". Also, they are shown there is not any respect towards them. Whereas, with Beyonce she portrays herself as a confident, happy, strong women who can look after herself and uses men instead of them using her. Women who are in the R&B genre are more likely to be like Beyonce, such as Rihanna and Nicki Minaj, instead of the women that appear in men R&B artists' music videos, such as in Snoop Dogg's music videos.


7. There are often intertextual references - mostly to film, television and popular culture.
I cannot see particular links with intertextual references but this music video shows a lot of images of nice cars and big houses. This can be linked in with wealth but I do not think that the music video has anything to do with wealth so these nice things might just be there because they fit in with the conventions of a typical R&B music video.