Saturday 27 August 2011

NickelBack - Rock Star

Artist: Nickelback
Track: Rockstar
Year: 2005
Director: Dori Oskowitz
Genre: Rock
Main Audience: Teenagers-30's , middle aged people
Type:


The video is lots of different kinds of people, from kids to celebrities lip syncing along with the song. This is quite unsual for the rock genre as Nickelback didn't perform (only when the song had finished did we get to see them) on a stage or do the stereotypical headbanging etc. There were no shots of guitars and no close ups of the band.



When the song was first released in August 2006, a music video was not made for the single. Dori Oskowitz, who directed the band's "If Everyone Cared" video, returned to direct the music video for the song's re-release.[4] The video would go on to become the top selling music video of 2007 on iTunes.
The video features celebrities and non-celebrities lip synching to the lyrics. The non-celebrities are often filmed in front of iconic landmarks, such as Times Square in New York and Millennium Park in Chicago. Celebrities include Billy Gibbons (who voices his lines in the song), Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Eliza Dushku, Gene Simmons, Wayne Gretzky, Big & Rich's John Rich, the cast of The Girls Next Door, Kid Rock, Lupe Fiasco, Nelly Furtado, the crew from American Chopper, Paul Wall, Ted Nugent, Grant Hill and numerous others. Sometimes the lyric they are lip synching relates to themselves. At the end of the video Nickelback is shown playing live on stage; this shot was filmed 13 July 2007 at the Comcast Center for the Performing Arts in Mansfield, Massachusetts.[5]
Wikipedia 2011
Wikipedia has listed each scene, who played in it and what they did


There is a small relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as some of them do the actions for example Nelly did a action of opening a book because the line was 'with the latest dictionary'. Also the lines 'playboy bunnies with their bleach blonde hair' and 'get a front door key to the playboy mansion' featured real playboy bunnies lip syncing along to those lines. There isn't a relationship with the visuals and the music as stated above, there is no typical rock aspect in there and having lots of different people has nothing to do with the lyrics.




The Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling

Artist: The Black Eyed Peas

Track: I Gotta Feeling

Year: 2009

Director: Mikey Mee

Genre: Dance/R'n'B

Main Audience: Teenagers mainly but it is listened to by other ages

Type: Mainly performance but there is narrative of a party

The Black Eyed Peas is made up of Will.i.am (lead male vocals, song writer and producer), Fergie (Lead female vocals), Taboo and  Apl. de. Ap. They are a worldwide successful group that have hits including, Pump It, Where is the love, Dirty Bit and Ma humps.


"I Gotta Feeling" is the second single from The Black Eyed Peas' fifth studio album The E.N.D., produced by the French DJ David Guetta.[2] The song was released on May 21, 2009[3] and debuted at number two on the Canadian and Billboard Hot 100 on the week of June 27, 2009, behind the group's "Boom Boom Pow", making the group one of 11 artists who have occupied the top two positions of the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time. The song later reached number one on the US charts and 20 charts worldwide. The song was nominated for Record of the Year at the 52nd Grammy Awards and won the Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.[4] "I Gotta Feeling" was 5th on the Billboard Hot 100 Songs of the Decade.[5] The song was also nominated as Song of the Year at the 2009 World Music Awards and is the most downloaded song on iTunes. In March 2011, it became the first song in digital history to sell over 7 million digital copies in the United States. This also makes it the highest selling digital, as well as non-charity single in the US ever.[6] On April 26, 2011, it was revealed on Nova FM to be the most downloaded song on iTunes in Australia since 2006.[7] "I Gotta Feeling" spent fourteen consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, the longest-running number-one single of 2009.


Wikipedia 2011


The video is basically just one massive party, at the begining they show people getting ready (i got a feeling, that tonights going to be a good night) so the night hasn't started yet, people walking to the party. Fergie is seen to be getting ready in her lingerie (Male gaze theory), she also has lesbian connections through out the video, dancing erotically with other female party goers, it's not just her that is doing these actions other females are too. The party involves neon paint, girls have hand prints on there legs with show up when they switch the lights off, and all of the black eyed pea's boys have it on their faces, which are drawn into glasses. It's a crazy party, with alcohol, lots of dancing and raving, people sexually active and at the end of the night people passed out, for example the woman is passed out round the 'The End' lights. "The video is directed by Mikey Mee of Little Minx and features guest appearances by David Guetta, Kid Cudi, Katy Perry, Chantal Jones, members of the Indie rock band Gossip, the designer duo Dean and Dan Caten of Dsquared2 and a few well-known personalities of the LGBT community, including Ongina of RuPaul's Drag Race fame." (Wikipedia 2011).
There was a uncensored version which had more sexual scenes including gay and lesbian action, this wasn't allowed to be shown on T.V so didn't get aired.

There is a huge relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, the first line of the song is 'I got a feeling, that tonights gunna be a good night', in these scenes there are people getting ready hoping it's going to be a good night. Another example is 'fill up my cup', Will.I.am poses with his cup showing that it's empty. The lyrics made the video, all the visuals are revolved around the lyrics. There is a relationship between the visuals and the music, the music is a dance song and upbeat, just like the video, and is a party anthem, so therefore it made sense for them to make the video a giant party.












Friday 26 August 2011

Professor Green Feat Emeli Sande - Read All About It

Artist: Professor Green Feat Emeli Sande
Track: Read All About It
Year: 2011
Director: Henry Scholfield
Genre: Rap/R'n'B
Main Audience: Teenagers
Type: Performance and Narrative

-Narrative
-Performance
-Close ups of singers
-Lots of shot variety
-Past life of a little boy (professor green)
-Childhood memories
-Long and Wide Shots
-Shows emotion
-Lighting- Shadowing Professor Green
               -Dark and gloomy
               -Emeli Sande has a warm lighting


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sean Kingston - Party All Night (Sleep All Day)

Artist: Sean Kingston
Track: Sleep All Day, Party All Night
Year: 2010
Director: James Larese
Genre: Pop
Main Audience: Teenagers
Type: Narrative/Performance


-Cartoon
-Performance- Close up of Sean
-Shows some of the lyrics
-Freeze frame building up to the drop in the music
-People moving to the beat
-Lack of shot variation
-As Sean Kingston isn't the stereotypical "hunk" the camera angle only show his top half, for example, fish eye lense (introduced by Missy Elliot)



Robbie Williams - She's The One

Artist: Robbie Williams
Track: She's The One
Year: 1999
Director: Dom Hawley and Nick Goffey
Genre: Pop/Soft Rock
Main Audience: 17-50
Type: Both narrative and performance


The fourth single, "She's the One", a cover of a track from World Party's album, Egyptology, became his second number one hit in the United Kingdom.[14] The single was released as a double a-side with "It's Only Us", the official theme for FIFA 2000. Williams featured in a campy and tongue-in-cheek music video where he was a figure skater. In the video he performs a backflip, which is actually illegal in competitive figure skating. The song went on to win a number of awards around the world, including a BRIT Award for Single of the Year and Best British Video in 2000, and it also won a Capital Radio Award for 'Best Single'.

Wikipedia 2011

The video starts off with a video type clip showing Robbie as the coach and his students winning. It the pans to him performing, sitting on the ice skating seats, this is a side angle. The team takes a tough knock when the lead male hurts his foot. There is then footage of Robbies childhood, showing him falling over and people laughing, the music then cuts off and shows an arena of people clapping Robbie and the female lead. They dance together and it's perfect, the camera always pans out so it's a long shot, this is because it isn't actually Robbie doing the lifting. There is then romantic lighting filled with shadows and spotlights, this sets the seen and signifies Robbies characters love for ice skating. He then does an amazing back flip whilst the other male looks on upset that it isn't him. They then win and soak up all the glory.

The video doesn' signify the lyrics that much, but the tones of the music is soft and like figure skating very smooth and graceful.


Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

Artist: Lady Gaga

Track: Bad Romance
Year: 2009
Director: Francis Lawrence
Genre: Dance/Pop
Main Audience: Teenagers
Type: Performance/Narrative
 
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta also known as superstar Lady Gaga is well known for her outgoing fashion, her never ending hits and her outrageous performances. She relesed the song Bad Romance as her first from her 3rd album The Fame Monster. "The track was inspired by the paranoia that Gaga experienced while touring the globe from 2008 to 2009. After a demo version of the song was leaked, Gaga premiered the finished version at Alexander McQueen's show at the Paris Fashion Week in October 2009. The song, containing elements of the music from the 1980s and the 1990s and influences of German house-techno music, has been described by Gaga as a pop experimental record. The song reached number one around the world and was also ranked the ninth best song by Rolling Stone in their list of "25 Best Songs of 2009" and received the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The accompanying music video features Gaga inside a surreal white bathhouse. There, she gets kidnapped by a group of supermodels who drug her and sell her to the Russian Mafia for sexual slavery. The music video ends with Gaga killing the man who bought her. The video received positive responses for its artistic treatment and visual imagery; critics complimented its provocative and symbolic plot. It was nominated for ten awards at the 2010 MTV Video sic Awards, eventually winning seven of those, including the Video of the Year.The video also won a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video."
  Some of the content was found on Wikipedia
 
  
"The main idea behind the video is that of Gaga getting kidnapped by a group of supermodels who drug her, and then sell her off to the Russian Mafia for a million rubles. It takes place in a fluorescent white bathhouse.[68][71] The video begins with Gaga sitting on a white throne in a brightly lit white room. The scene shows her wearing the razor blade glasses and surrounded by people and a harlequin Great Dane. She has her finger on the mute button of an iPod speaker, and as she releases it, "Bad Romance" begins to play and a dimly lit bath house is shown. A bright light pans across the walls, activating fluorescent lighting, that shines through a sign reading "Bath Haus of GaGa". As the first hook of the song begins, a group of female dancers wearing white long-sleeved leotards with knee high boots and matching crowns crawl out of white, coffin-like pods. The center pod has "Mons†er" written on it, and Gaga emerges wearing a similar outfit to the others, who begin to dance behind her. A pastiche of following scenes alternates between Gaga singing to herself in front of a mirror and lying in a bathtub.
When the chorus of the song begins, two women pull Gaga out of the bathtub, rip her clothes off and force her to drink a glass of vodka. As the second verse begins, Gaga, wearing a diamond-covered outfit topped with a crown, seductively dances for a group of men bidding for her. She straddles one of the men, played by Slovenian model Jurij Bradač,[72] and performs a lap dance for him. Afterwards, the man raises his bid and becomes the highest bidder for her. When the chorus is played for the third time, Gaga is shown wearing a faux polar bear hide jacket. She walks towards the man, who is sitting on a bed and unbuttoning his shirt, while drinking a glass of vodka. Gaga has a look of indifference on her face and removes her jacket and sunglasses. Suddenly, the bed spontaneously combusts with the man still sitting on it and Gaga sinisterly sings in front of the flames. The video ends with her lying beside a smoldering skeleton, on top of the destroyed bed, covered in ashes. With soot smeared across her body, she calmly smokes a cigarette, while her pyrotechnic bra activates"

Wikipedia 2011

The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is not very related. The video is about her being taken and forced into the world of sexual slavery where as the lyrics are talking about she just wants a romance thats naughty and dirty for herself and someone. On the other hand there is a relationship between the visuals and the music because pop and dance videos usually have this kind of theme, all crazy and fun, Lady Gaga is well known for her crazy ideas and they don't always make sense, this can be a good thing.

Within the video there are many different shot types. At around 3.40 the clips cut each second into three different scenes, theser are all fast straight cuts to signify the urgancy in her getting out of there.  There are zoom ins 0.03, close up of Gaga's face, a good use of lighting, in the bath scene the light from the windows light up the baths. The clip very rarely stays on the setting for more than 5 seconds, very common aspects of dance/pop. There are many dance routines and risque clothing (again Gaga is known for this, for example, when she turned up to an award ceremony in an all meat dress and hand bag, She likes to cause controversy). All the dancers are dressed the same where as Lady Gaga is obviously dressed more glamerous to stand out (typical convention). There is also a special effect of diamonds falling from the sky as Gaga is frozen.

This video addresses issues that are around in the world. Young girls get kidnapped everyday in the human trafficing business, it also shows Lady Gaga's feminist look on life, most of her videos and lyrics have many messages. Most of her other videos are similar to this, they don't really make sense abut can be watched over and over again.
 


Mad World - Tears For Fears

 

Artist: Tears for Fears

Track:  Mad World

Year: 1982

Director: Clive Richardson

Genre: Synthpop/ new wave

Main Audience: 16-30

Type: Mainly Performance


"A cover version was made in 2003 and was the sound track to the film Donnie Darko. It features a gloomy looking Curt Smith staring out a window, while Roland Orzabal performs a bizarre dance outside on a lakeside jetty. This dance was later parodied in The Cure's "Let's Go To Bed" video."
Wikipedia 2011
As the video was made in the early 80's it is clear that it was made in an early time period, as the quality of the actual clips is not very good. Also there isn't that much shot variety and the lip syncing is sometimes out of place. They have used multi-layer which is good and signifies his thoughts but there only seems to be one main location, this is bad because it becomes boring and tedious. Roland Orzabal also does a little dance showing the mad side to this song and video.
All of the camera movements and angles all pan very slowly and there are many shots of Smith looking through the window this again signifies his thoughts and feelings, and could well mean that the world is so mad he can't leave that room.




Monday 22 August 2011

Take That - The Flood

Artist: Take That
Track: The Flood

Year: 2010

Director: Mat Whitecross

Genre: Pop


Main Audience: All ages

Type: Mainly performance but there are aspects of narrative


The band consists of Gary Barlow (Lead Vocalist and primary song writer), Robbie Williams (Second lead vocalist), Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Howard Donald. Take That were a massive group around the world in the 1990's, but they split in 1996 devastated the world. In there hay day they had 27 top 40 hits and 16 top 5 singles, They have 7 number 1 albums and 11 number one singles. Robbie Williams left the band in 1995 and went on to become a solo artist, he was very successful but went off the rails during is hyped career, this cause both him and his former band mates trouble. They then reformed in 2005 as a four man band (without Robbie Williams) but he then re-joined the group in 2010 for a world come back. They are the word success in a band.


The video features the five members of the band racing against another crew in specially-made five-seater Sculling boats. The band's boat is named "Progress" after the record breaking number 1 album, whilst the band wear old-fashioned white rowing kits, bearing a custom-designed Take That crest.[1] The group are shown to be competing in a race against a younger crew and although losing the race, the group continue going past the finish line and are shown to row down the River Thames past famous London landmarks before fading away into a stormy sea. The video for the single was filmed on Dorney Lake in Buckinghamshire, which will play host to the rowing events at the 2012 Olympics.[2]

Wikipedia 2011




The video is all based on rowing, water and 2012 Olympics as stated above. The song The Flood is about how Gary, Jason, Mark and Howard took on Robbie Williams again and they want to show that there stronger than ever and wont give up trying. On the boat it has printed on the name of their current album 'Progress', this could also signify how they aare going to do in the boat race. The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is not that related, although there is water (flood) and the reference to not giving up (giving up the boat race) it doesn't really have a deep meaning that the song has. The relationship between the visuals and the music is related, the song is quite slow moving then gradually builds tension, the video does this well. For example the part of the song where it peaks a gun shot goes off for the boat race, it is in perfect timing and from there on it creates tension.
Through out the video there are close ups of each member of the band, it is equally shared out, this is unusual for pop videos as they usually focus on the main leading vocals. Many close ups are used for the ores, handles etc, there are also many long shots of the boats and surroundings. They have tried to make Take That old fashioned with the uniform and the way they present themselves, especially the other team being younger.


Sunday 21 August 2011

Busted - Crashed The Wedding

Artist: Busted


Track: Crashed The Wedding

Year: 2003

Director: Brian Storm

Genre: Pop/Rock

Main Audience:Teenagers

Type: Performance/narrative

Busted are a British group, the song - crashed the wedding- was composed by one of it's member (James Bourne). It was there second single to reach number one in the U.K and it was also released in America and Japan. It's band consists of James Bourne, Matt Willis and Charlie Simpson, who is now a successful solo artist with hits like Parachute and Down Down Down.

The humorous music video features  Busted playing at a wedding in which nearly all the guests are portrayed by the band members. Busted then go on to destroy the wedding, wrecking the cake and knocking over tables. A scene involving one character spanking another was edited out when the video was aired during the daytime. Before the song begins, a muzak version of Busted's first single "What I Go to School For" is heard. Willis, Bourne and Simpson portray Adam Ant, Michael Jackson and Boy George impersonators respectively. Harry Judd from the UK band McFly plays the drummer in the video.[8] The single was also promoted by appearances on Top of the Pops, Top of the Pops Saturday (as an acoustic performance), cd:uk (twice), Popworld  (twice), the Royal Variety Performance, and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.[9] The line "I'm so rushed off my feet, looking for Gordon Street" is a reference to the 1993 film Wayne's World 2.
Wikipedia
The video is both narrative and performance, but the whole cast is mainly played by themselves. Through out the video there is many different characters played by Charlie, Matt and James, but they also perform on stage being themselves. On some of the clips it was obvious that they would have had to film it at seperate times but you can'treally tell that it was done this way. It isn't usual for any genre to have a member from another band in your video except when they collaberate together. In one scene the camera goes upside down and spins around, unusual method for this type of genre. The boys are clearly trying to win the girl back and stop her from marrying her future husband, they succeed with this and also destroy and cause mischeif around the wedding party (the clip when Charlie destroys the cake). Busted have clearly taken the micky of other celebrities such as Michael Jackson, it all comes with the humour and fun of the video.

The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals are pretty much the same. They crashed the wedding in the video and the song is called 'Crashed the wedding'. They are singing about how they want this girl back, but her father doesn't like them (Her daddy disagrees, he's always hated me) so they have to get her before it's to late. 'I'm glad I crashed the wedding' describes the feelings after. There is a relationship between the music and the visuals as they are still keeping the traditional conventions of performance based video and showing them playing guitars but they have just put a new twist on it, by making it fun and taking the micky.