Wednesday, 6 October 2010

Blog 6 - Video Analysis

In this blog I have chosen three music video's, one from from my chosen artist with some analysis on certain elements of the videos. and two of another of the same musical genre

Video 1) Don't Stop The Music - Rihanna

YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd8jh9QYfEs

Don't Stop The Music was the third single taken from Rihanna's third album Good Girl Gone Bad, the video is set within a night club/late night scene environment. The genre of the video of the video is leisure, fun, party and sexual in relation towards some of the lyrics. The video represented youth culture and a party/fun lifestyle through the video's setting, mise-en-scene and also the song lyrics and sound, the setting off a nightclub and costumes represent young people having fun on a night out, the dance beat track to the song also matches with a more stereotyped youth type of music known as dance music however others could see it as a modernised version of disco, this therefore makes it more difficult to generalise the target audiences, however a rough estimation for this kind of video would be young individuals aged between 18 - 30) simply due to the setting and environment of the video as club culture is commonly more popular in early years of adulthood. The video communicates many varieties of meaning to it's audiences, in the opening the scene of the video Rihanna is shown sneaking into the club and making a 'ssshhh' pose to a small boy, this could be seen as rebellious as it can indicate that she wasn't supposed to be in that club environment. Sexuality is also represented as a meaning throughout the lyrics of the song, and the body language of Rihanna herself, the lyrics state 'and now were rocking on the dance floor acting naughty, your hands around my waist' which can show the representation of sexual influences and urges throughout the club experience. Rihanna's body language throughout the video also help to represent this, especially in her solo shots.



Dont Stop The Music Video Screenshots












For the next two video's I decided to analyse two videos from Lady GaGa, I decided to do this because firstly both Rihanna and Lady GaGa fall into the pop music genre, and I felt that Lady GaGa's music video had a lot of prospectives that could be analysed in terms of genre, representations and creating a meaning.

Video 2) Just Dance - Lady GaGa


Just Dance was the debut single taken From Lady GaGa's first album The Fame which was released in 2008. The video is set in a house in the style of a house party, this takes the video to have a genre of leisure, youth culture, representing a young, party, wild life style. It's representation is displayed through the setting, mise-en-scene, dance moves etc. it represents mostly youth culture and the lifestyle of a party driven individual and group of individuals partying all night long with influences and abuse of alcohol, smoking and vandalism/mess. The video's audience is aimed towards youths within the music industry fan base as people between the ages of 16 - 25 will relate mostly to the videos meaning of the party lifestyle such as students and individuals with time to spend partying in clubs/pubs and house parties and being out of control. The music video communicates a meaning to it's audience through the setting, mise-en-scene, lyrics and dance moves, the mise-en-scene such as the costumes are make-up are extremely dramatic and wild which many youths today can understand and relate to. The dance moves within the music video and the body language is rather sexual and promiscuous which is a style which is mostly labelled towards youths in society rather than older generations. However the video includes one or more older actors within the scenes of the video which can also represent older generations having the similar life styles as youths breaking a given stereotype.


Screen Shots From The Just Dance Music Video











Video 3) Beautiful Dirty Rich - Lady GaGa


Beautiful, Dirty Rich was a promotional single taken from Lady GaGa's number 1 album The Fame in 2008. It wasn't released in the UK but had good chart success within the United States and across other countries around the world. The Genre of this video is wealth and money which is represented through the video and lyrics "we're beautiful and dirty rich, dirty dirty rich rich dirty dirty beautiful" the lyrics represent having wealth makes you beautiful and evan dirty. Wealth is represented throughout the video's shots of Lady GaGa's character rolling around in money and having so much she can burn money away. The video also represents a form of youth culture of leisure and party lifestyles, this is shown through party scenes and shots within the video where alcohol is being consumed and smoking drugs using money as papers. This can also represent a rebelious side which again is more labelled towards youths this is also shown in the videos narrative. The audience for the video again is likely to be aimed at a younger audience due to the party theme and lifestyle however the representation of having too much money can also be directly linked towards older generations who has secure careers and success. The video for Beauiful, Dirty, Rich communicates it's meaning through imagery through it's mise-en-scene and setting. The video is set in a big fancy styled house which instantly represents wealth, the props of money all over the place also shows wealth and greed, the body language of Lady GaGa's character within the video shows a sense of success and pride of having all this money and being able to roll in it literally.

Screen Shots From The Beautiful, Dirty, Rich Music Video. (2008 Interscope Records)

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