Analysing a Professional Music Video using Goodwins Theory

JLS - She Makes Me Wanna

I have chosen this example as although the concept is unlike the one that we used within our project, the song is of a pop genre and quite upbeat and fun which is something that we explored within our video.

Genre characteristics
This pop genre music video by a young boy group demonstrates clear genre characteristics. The music video shows the young and attractive boy group performing a dance routine whilst singing in all of the video. There are also shots of the band members close-up and also topless in order to appeal to the target audience of teenage girls who adore the band. The video also contains lots of lively visuals including bright coloured clothing and a crowded beach location in order to portray the pop genre.

Music and visuals

There is a really strong relationship between the music and visuals in this music video which is really effective. The video is set in a beach location where we see the four group members and lots of people partying/having a good time which is shown by the energetic dancing etc of everyone. We see the four group members dancing on different raised surfaces (e.g. rocks, dance platforms) in the most of the video in order to make them clear to the viewer. They dance a routine which has been specifically co-ordinated to the song and the lyrics in it so that the band members move along with the song. This is effective in making the song more memorable for the audience and also providing them with the upbeat feel and atmosphere from the song and video. Also, the dancing people in the background of the video are jumping and moving in a specific pattern in order to emphasise the lively music and general atmosphere of the video. The editing of the shots in the video also links the music and visuals together strongly. Quite a lot of the cuts and fades in the video, which transfer us from shot to shot, cut on the beat of the music and therefore give the video a more professional look and make the video run more smoothly.

Lyrics and visuals

There is also quite a strong relationship between the lyrics and visuals in this video. Firstly, as the video starts and the song is introduced we see the artist and song name appear on screen. The song name ‘She Makes Me Wanna’ is typically one of the main lyrics in the song and is repeated four times within the chorus. Secondly, the lyrics for the song generally talk about how the band members are intrigued and interested in a (not specified) female who is referred to as ‘she’ in the song. The video shows a variety of shots of young attractive females which are partying in the video, and not wearing a lot of clothes. The use of these shots emphasises the point of the song and that the singers are talking about a girl.

Demands of the record label

There are also clear demands of the record label with in this music video. The video features lots of close-ups of each band member in the group as well as long and mid-shots of the band together. There are also shots which feature a couple of the band members shirtless in order to appeal to stereotypical female teenage fans.

Objectification of women

The video also demonstrates objectification of women. Like previously said the band talks about a female within the lyrics and due to the band members being young and attractive the video features young and attractive females too. As the location used in the video is a beach these females wear hardly any clothing e.g. bikini’s/shorts and t-shirts which show off their feminine features. Some of the shots used emphasise this objectification of them e.g. close-ups, and low angle views which allow the viewer to focus on the body of the woman. This is used to highlight the theme and narrative in the video.

Looking back at our storyboard

After finishing our project, we re-looked at our storyboard to compare how far we stuck to our original idea for the video.

We stuck to the head shots of the people in the video but certain things changed as they were all holding a piece of food instead of things to play with like the bubbles. We still used many long shots of the group all together but we used more close up shots on the action. We couldn't stick to some shots as we couldn't find a parachute.

I think that we did stick to our idea well but some shots we couldn't do due to not having the correct equipment.

Editing of our Music Video

These are screen shots of our project in final cut, we used different lines as we felt this was a lot easier to move about and everything wasn't squashed together.

Analysing a past students Music Video using Goodwins Theory

The genre of the song in this music video is a rap R&B style song which is sung by a male singer and in the video the characters are playing up to a typical stereotype of a rap singer. The music video is created with a humorous side to it and is seen as a parody style video. Also, because of this we see the characters/singers wearing tracksuit bottoms, t-shirts, baggy jeans, hoodys, hats and gold jewellery (e.g. chains) etc. We also see them hanging in a gang around council house, graffiti covered, and grotty street locations. Both of these stereotypically suggest that the characters are hooligans.

Visuals and Lyrics

In this music video there is not really a relationship between lyrics and visuals. With the visuals we mainly see two out of the four characters lip-synching to the music whilst wandering and hanging around several of the described locations. The lyrics talk about the rappers career and where it began etc although the lyrics are hard to follow because the rapper is rapping quite fast. We only see a slight relationship between the lyrics and visuals where at the beginning a female voice says ‘London England’ as the rapper gets out of a car in a street location and therefore the location could be suggestive of some areas in London. Also later on in the video the words ‘Stop Complaining’ are sung and when they are these words are written with a pen on screen. Otherwise in this music video the students do not relate to any of these lyrics. It seems as if the students have taken on board the genre of the music in this video more and related it to what their stereotype of this genre is and recreated it with a humorous feel around it. Linking the lyrics and visuals thoroughly could have been difficult/not possible with their ideas or timescale for example therefore they may have decided to approach it differently.

Music and Lyrics

There is quite a strong relationship between the music and visuals in this video due to the way the students have edited their video. Due to the strong beat in the song which continues throughout they have cut many of their shots on this beat in order to link the music and visuals and provide an easy to watch music video which flows in pace. They do not however continue this throughout their video and sometimes have cuts on every two beats and three beats etc which is not as successful in my opinion. They also link their music and visuals in their video by the way in which some characters dance humorously and do certain actions on the beat of the song.

Demands of the record label

There are clear demands for a record label as there are frequent close-up and mid-shots which are shown in the video. The use of these shots gives the video more of a professional feel and also allows the audience to identify the characters, especially the main two singers that appear in most close-up shots. The humorous dancing that the characters also do to the beat of the song could be identified as a recurring motif in the artists work.

Intertextual references

As the theme in this video is ‘gangsters’/hooligans hanging around in groups there could be several Intertextual references made to films/music videos/TV programmes with similar content in. I know myself that I have seen similar locations and actions before within the media but cannot think of any specific examples. Musicians like Drake records rap music and in some of his videos he wears baggy jeans, gold jewellery etc and this could be linked to the stereotype of the music and figures we see related to it. The film ‘This is England’, which I have myself seen parts of, documents unruly young adults and their dangerous street lives. This could be compared to the stereotypical street location or clothing that the students have used in their video.

Research into a Director's Commentary

A director’s commentary is (normally) a piece of footage in which the director explains their intentions within the media product that they have created. This usually includes the director talking about what their aim was within a scene and why they chose a particular location, colour scheme, costume etc as well as what they intended to achieve and portray to the viewer because of their choices. A director’s commentary can also more simply include the director talking the viewer in more detail about everything that happens within a scene in order for them to understand what is going on. Director’s commentaries are really useful as they allow both the director and the public to get an insight into what inspired the director at specific points in their media product and most importantly what the director wanted to achieve and create a sense of in their media product.

It also gives a chance for the director to review their work from their own perspective and talk specifically about what they thought was successful or unsuccessful within their piece of work. Director’s commentaries are usually footage of a director talking directly into the camera with the footage of their media product being inserted at the necessary points for the viewer to see. Another popular way is having the footage of the director’s media product playing on screen and having a voice over of the director talking about their work. This provides the audience to follow what the director is saying more successfully.

Example from Doctor Who:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/videos/p00hcrml

Analysing a professional Digipak

Rihanna is an extremely popular, well known and loved female R&B/pop singer of our generation. This digipak is for the artists album titled ‘Loud’, released 2010, which was a huge success with the general public for its fun and upbeat vibe.

The title of the album ‘Loud’ is cleverly reflected within the album imagery/artwork. On the front cover of the album we see a close-up shot of the artist looking down with her lips parted. The pose she undertakes is quite posed and in this way emphasises her femininity. Due to the artist looking away/down in the image the pose portrays a vulnerable yet sexy and mysterious side to the artist which is emphasised further by the artist’s image. It is also quite personal and enclosed pose as the artist is not revealing her face or body etc to the camera. The image is really exciting and eye catching due to the use of the vibrant red colour of the artist’s hair, long curled eyelashes and also the bright red lips, which are defined beautifully. The combination of these emphasises these feminine features of the artists and portrays her image as vibrant and sexy to the viewer. The font used on the cover is thin and coloured white to stand out against the bold vibrant colours that dominate the rest of the cover. The style of the font is however quite subtle and therefore allows the daring image of the artist to be the emphasis of the cover and catch the viewers eye.

The theme of femininity is also continued throughout the digipak with the use of vibrant, bold and feminine colours. In the inside fold out cover of the digipak there is a large visual image of the artist. In this image we see the artist in a white, lacy two piece dress which is flirty and feminine. She appears in a trance by the way that she lies against a bush of bright red flowered roses, smelling them and appearing caught in the sensational moment. The artist therefore appears allured by both the roses, and her surroundings. The use of the bright red roses again emphasises the artist’s femininity and continues the theme of the red throughout the album. The rose is also a portrayal of beauty, passion and love and by including this it is suggestive of the theme within the artists work and also a representation of the artist herself.

The artwork on the CD itself is an image of a flourishing rose. The colour of the CD is a softer light pink colour which gives a more innocent and laid back feel. The simple rose image is really pretty and gives a nice finishing touch to tie in the theme of the digipak. The artists name, album title, producers and record label as well as website address are printed on the CD in small print giving a professional touch.

Overall, I really like this digipak due to the stunning artwork and imaginative concept to the album as a whole which is really brought out within. The choice of colour scheme and imagery is also successful in creating a portrayal of the theme that the artist intended for the album and also a portrayal of the artist and her personality.

Analysing a professional Magazine Ad

Britney Spears is an extremely popular and well known musician, singer and actress. She is considered the princess of pop and has had many number one singles over the past 15 years. The image above is a magazine ad for an album she released in 2008. The album is called ’Circus’ has a fun and quirky pop/dance feel around it and is quite shows different sides to the artists personality. The imagery of the album is very much themed around a circus and the goings on in one.
I really like this magazine advert as it is quite eye catching and fun and has an original idea around it as well as looking professional. The magazine ad, like the album, encompasses a circus theme in which the magazine ad replicates an actual circus poster. The magazine ad uses an eye catching yet classic colour scheme of cream, red, mustard yellow and blue and this gives the ad a realistic yet vintage style which circus posters traditionally have. The font used is very bold and vintage styled in order to grab the eye of the viewer and again replicates the font used on a traditional styled circus poster. Britney’s name appears very large and in bold 3D lettering a quarter of the way down the image, with the album name and other info in smaller letters underneath in order to catch the viewers eye first. To emphasise this circus theme and portray a real circus poster the magazine ad features a vintage baroque pattern which is placed at the top and bottom of the ad drawing the text inbetween it together and giving the poster a classic touch. It also has 3 stars which appear either side of the release date of the new album, highlighting it and again replicating the traditional conventions of a circus poster. This whole grouping of text is featured within a border which again helps to draw the viewer’s eye towards the lighter coloured background and text in the middle of it.

Britney’s record label’s logo also appears in the top left hand corner of the magazine ad along with the entertainment industries logo in the right hand top corner. Both of these give the magazine a professional feel but still remain subtle and part of the poster by the colour they are presented in. Her website address is also featured for publicity and easy accessibility to fans. An extra is also added to the magazine ad in the right hand bottom corner of the magazine ad in a scroll shape. This contains quirky phrase and number for fans to call Britney, suggesting that she is the performer, but is a pun in order to follow the conventions of a proper circus poster and have fun with the concept.

Overall, I find this magazine ad extemely successful as it a really original and fun idea that follows the theme and concept of her new album. This is important as it enables fans and the public to be able to identify her work. I also like the fact that the magazine ad has a unique idea and is not just a posey image of the artist herself, like the work of other pop artists and find it really interesting.

Analysing past students Magazine Ads

Group P2-10


Here is a magazine ad by previous students for their music video project. They focused on an R&B genre for their music video due to the style of song that was chosen. Although the magazine ad is not particularly suggestive of the R&B genre or slow, romantic styled song it does represent the genre by the way that the artist is a young, dark haired and olive skinned female as a lot of R&B signers in the current industry have this representation. I do not however feel that the magazine ad is at all successful due to the unprofessional and rushed feel to it. It also does not feel as if the group have thought about the genre and their idea properly although the written work on their blog does contain a lot of ideas. In my opinion they seem to have misunderstood the task and created a magazine cover rather than a magazine ad promoting their artist/song.

Firstly, the image they have used on their background does not feel very professional due to the artist being sat on a bike in front of random buildings and trees. On their blog the group commented on how they had taken the images surrounding trees to link in with their music video and some shots in it but in my opinion this is too vague and does not relate to the style or genre of the song particularly well. The magazine ad also has an extremely unprofessional feel due to the font styling, colouring and placing. The group have used the same font, a pretty standard styled font that does not particularly portray a girly female artist, throughout their magazine ad. They have also used really plain colours for the font such as black and white which again are not suggestive of the girly and romantic styled song, or eye catching enough to stand out against the busy background. With the font they have also placed it quite randomly and this looks untidy and is not very well composed with the image they have used. They also mention quite random and magazine cover styled phrases on their magazine ad e.g. ‘get the latest winter fashions’ which do not promote the song or artist very well. The unprofessional feel is again emphasised more by the magazine ad not having any professional music companies/brands logo’s on the magazine ad. The cover would have looked a lot more professional if there were reviews or ratings of the artist/songs work or by letting the viewer know which retailers are selling the product.

Overall the group have not portrayed or emphasised the style and genre of the song and artist enough in their magazine ad. It also feels really unprofessional by the rushed, untidy layout and lack of creativity throughout.

Analysing past students Digipacks

Group T1-31



This group have chosen to focus on a rock/punk genre of music for their music video project and this is reflected well within their digi-pack. The image on the front of the digi-pack is really successful as it is a big, close-up image of the main singer rocking out to the music. The image being really big is effective as it dominates the whole cover and draws the attention of the viewer into it. The close-up shot also helps to emphasise this. The genre is also reflected through this image due to the lead singer rocking out and getting lost in the music which is stereotypical of a rock/punk singer.

The digi-pack also encorporates a ‘parental advisory’ mark on the front cover to stand out to the viewer and make it clear that the intended audience are older teenagers who enjoy rock. Although this does portray target audience they were trying to attract (anti-social/rock styled teenagers) it could be mistaken for a lot older adult audience by the public. The text used in the digi-pack is again effective in portraying the rock styled, anti-social themed group and music by its rough and edgy look.

The colour scheme of the digi-pack is also successful as it links clearly with the groups ideas that they talked about in their previous posts. They talked about how they wanted to include an old style effect in their video in order to relate to the comical policeman idea that they were inspired by, by other artists. They used a sepia colouring effect which emphasises the old 60’s look they were trying to achieve. The digi-pack also includes fun images of the group and a screenshot of the policeman on the back of the cover which link in the music video and the concept of a whole. I also like the way that they have included a barcode and professional music brands/channels comments and reviews as well as a rating for the digi-pack which gives it a more professional and realistic feel as well as again making it clear who the target audience are. Overall this is an eye-catching and effective digi-pack which relates to the genre of the music and target audience well.

Filming our commentary

We filmed our commentary in pairs and a group of three in order for us to concentrate and focus on the points that we were each making. We only had 35 minutes to film our commentary which we found not a lot of time as there was a lot of information to cover between all 5 of us. We did not get chance to film a small section of our commentary due to this and will therefore use a voice over for the remaining information that we need to include. The information included in the rest of our commentary was successful.

Directors Commentary script/notes.

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Jack: Noah and the whale, The Vaccines, inspiration, hazy effect

Charlotte: Genre, indie/pop, summer fun, food fights, target audience

Olie: goodwins, lyrics + visuals, music + visuals

Jade: singing, food fight, indie genre

Alex: research into 'pop' video conventions


How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Charlotte: music video, food fight, preparation

Olie: digi pack, how we made it, screen shots, energetic

Jade: tins, wrappers of food in video, clear links, writing on tins

Alex: fonts similar/same, effect same as video

Jack: Tour dates poster

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Olie: initial pitch 'Jack Johnson', not great feedback

Jade: 'We're from Barcelona' heard lots of great ideas

Alex: rough cut, rushed, wasn't finished, no singing

Jack: final improvements, added shots, colour corrector, added singing

Charlotte: over all how feedback helped us.


How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stage? 

Jade: final cut, rewind, fast, slow, colour corrector

Alex: photoshop, magazine ad, text, layers, easy to use

Jack: blogger, research, planning, easy to use 

Charlotte: HD cameras, tripod, stills camera

Olie: how everything helped our video to be amazing!! 

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products in different ways. Our music video is stereotypical by the way that it uses Goodwin’s ideas of a media product. The song we chose for our music video is a very quirky and upbeat song which for me reminds me of summer and makes me smile. For example it demonstrates genre characteristics by the way in which the visuals in the music video and also editing techniques are quirky and upbeat to match the style of the song. As the song reminded us of summer and gave us the idea of having a group picnic we wanted to reflect this fun and energetic summer feel within our video. We filmed on a sunny day but also edited in a summery/hazy feel to the visual creating an almost vintage memory style visual for the viewer which we felt worked really well. We also gained inspiration to do this idea from watching other products that we have analysed. One of these was from the artist Noah and the Whale whose lively visuals and songs are really addictive for their audience. In one of their videos they played around with a vintage style hazy effect and we thought that it was really effective and gave an extra element of fun to the video and therefore decided to experiment with it in our own video. Also in this way there is a relationship between music and visuals as the upbeat music and beat within the track is reflected within our video due to the style and pace. Lyrics and visuals are also explored thoroughly by our footage of a lively group of friends having fun on a summery day, which is a theme reflected within the lyrics of the song.

We did also develop and challenge the forms and conventions of real media products as we wanted to make our video more exciting and entertaining for our viewer. As we wanted to really emphasise the liveliness and originality of the song that we chose in our video we decided to play around and experiment with different things throughout the process, some of which failed and some of which were successful. One thing that we found really successful and thought added a lot of fun to the video was using a fast forward/rewind technique on some of our footage. When editing we added the technique to some of footage showing our characters doing something. The footage would then rewind slightly and they would do the same thing again. We thought that this was really effective as it emphasised the specific actions and also is different to any other effects/techniques that we have seen when analysing other music video’s recently.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I think that the combination of our main product and ancillary texts are very effective as they have a clear link. We based the theme of our ancillary texts around the main themes apparent within our music video which are fun and food, although we did take into account the fact that the ancillary texts are representative of say an album and still thought that due to our artists quirky and lively representation that this was still expressed through the ideas that we used. For our ancillary texts we created a magazine advert promoting our music video, a Digi-pack and also an extra tour poster which we feel all work together to create an effective promotional package. We used screen shots from our music video for both the Digi-pack and Tour poster which we thought would look effective. These were group shots emphasising the energetic, together feel of the artist overall and chose quirky fonts, and bright, summery colours to emphasise this even more. For our magazine advert we used a well composed photograph of food which relates to our picnic scene in our video as we thought that it was very eye catching. We feel that overall the set of 3 ancillary texts do continue to communicate the idea of a quirky artist and summer fun concept to their work which is apparent in our music video. We feel that we have appealed to our target audience of male and female teenagers and young adults due to the quirky and original ideas and theme that we have used throughout our products. We feel that being original with ideas really stands out from the crowd.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Receiving feedback from both peers and other students was really helpful as it allowed us to be able to expand on and improve our ideas. We had criticism on our original idea that we pitched for as others felt that it was not an original enough idea. Even though receiving negative feedback was a knock for us, we also felt that it was beneficial as it gave us a chance to rethink our original ideas and why they were not very successful and achievable. We then chose to pitch for our second choice of song which we all felt was more suitable due to the amount of fun and different ideas that we were coming up with. We chose this song after we had positive feedback on our ideas as they had a unique and quirky concept that seemed to stand out.
The feedback from the rough cut of our video was fairly positive as both peers and teachers thought that our idea and concept and also footage was successful but we just needed to tweak and add some more to the video in order to make it more entertaining for the viewer. We found the feedback really useful as it allowed us to identify specific aspects of the video that needed a bit more work and focus on improving them. The negative feedback received was mainly based around our editing and the fact that it was quite boring and repetitive. We also did not have any shots of the song being sung in our video and upon receiving this feedback realised that this was something that would improve our video a lot. We received positive feedback about our reversing technique which we ourselves though was successful so decided to include this technique in more of our video as we thought it was really creative.

Overall, the feedback we had throughout the process was really beneficial as it allowed us to get another opinion on our work and have the chance to improve and add more to it in order to make the final product as successful as possible.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stage?

Media technologies available to us throughout the music video process were really helpful as they allowed us to create a really successful final product. We used Blogger to document our planning, researching and developments throughout the project. Blogger was really useful as it allowed us to quickly jot any ideas on it and then edit and view them when needed. It also allowed us to document our inspirations and research into other media products and also compare them to our own ideas and products easily. Final Cut was the software that allowed us to create our music video and this was an essential. Final Cut is a really good program as it is quite advanced and therefore has a lot of capabilities. It allowed us to create a really professional final product and also use many exciting and new techniques and editing effects that we had not used before in our video. I found I was able to experiment more and explore Final Cut within this project due to our quirky style of video as we experimented with fun filters and effects that Final Cut had to offer. Photoshop is an advanced digital editing software which we created our final magazine advert, digi-pack and tour poster products on. We also created various mood boards and planning items earlier on in the project using it as it had endless possibilities and for me is really easy to use. Using all of these programs allowed us to create a very professional and well made set of products overall.

The HD cameras were also a really useful piece of equipment as they allowed us to capture high quality and a wide range of shots when filming. We also used the HD camera to take still shots all throughout the music video project and all of these came out successfully. The tripod that came with the camera was also really beneficial as it made sure that our footage was not shaky and blurry due to instability.

Overall all of the technologies used allowed us to be really creative and innovative as in the various stages of creating our final product we were always able to record our ideas and inspirations clearly and effectively or access high quality and professional equipment easily. I would say that in terms of creating a professional image that higher quality DSLR cameras would have been useful as these are much higher quality than just a standard stills camera.

FINAL DIGI PACK AND MAGAZINE AD ITEMS

Tour Date Poster - Digi Pack Extra!

Digi-pack and Magazine Advert Concept

for our digi-pack we have chosen to have a shot of the band on the front of the cover using a shot that wasn't included in the filming to try and separate the digi-pack from the individual track, the inside of the pack will be a shot of the entire group shown in film stretching across both sides of the inside cover. the back cover will be a shot of a till receipt with the track information and other info printed onto it, the magazine ad will be a shot of food but with the album information printed onto well known food labels (e.g heinz beans.

Final Music Video

Extra filming

We decided that we would need to film more footage for our music video as we wanted somebody to be singing the song. We had the idea to film one of our group members singing the song with food being poured over her in order to fit in with our food fight theme that is seen in the rest of our footage. We filmed our team member looking and acting very cheerful in order to again fit in with the atmosphere and positive mood in the video. We found that the filming was successful as we shot and planned carefully. We filmed each verse of the song in order to be sure that we had enough footage to play around with.

Feedback for rough cut from Andrea and Amar.

Positives: 

- You can sense a good vibe

- There are nice pans and a few zoom shots

- Good editing in time with the beat of the song

- Stereotypical, a fun song with a fun image to go with it; food fight

To Improve:

- Show each character at the beginning for longer so you can see who they are and what they are holding

- Have more close-ups to vary the shots, to get some reactions

- When shooting the performance footage get a lot of close-ups and try to make the background something other than green bushes. This is to make the audience establish that they are taking place in different places.

We are going to shoot the performance shots tomorrow, friday 4th November, and will use the guidance given to us by Andrea and Amar. We are also going to make the clips of people at the start longer so you can see what they are holding and recognize the character. We are going to look through the clips to see what close-ups we have then try to incorporate them into the video so we get a variation of shots.

Rough Cut Music Video Feedback

Goodwin feedback:
Music + visuals - image changes on the beat.
Lyrics + visuals - abstract, contrasting.
Voyerism - looking at the camera.
Colourful, upbeat, random.

Camerawork:
Good mid shots to introduce the characters.
Should include more shots.
Good natural feel, felt included.

Editing:
Good to introduce people but didn't get any of it?
Reverse stuff was good, but a bit pointless.
Transitions were ok and a good pace.

Mise en scene:
Costumes modern
Props - food fight, light hearted and humorous.
Colour - natural sunlight.
Feel of mise-en-scene correlates well with feel and genre of music.
A bit short.

Rough Cut Music Video - We're From Barcelona

This is our rough cut for our Music Video to We're From Barcelona. We did not get time to finish the music video completely due to not having enough time and having alot of editing and effects which took a considerable amount of time.