Survey Results

Here are the results of my survey to see what my target audience would like to see in my music video. By finding this information out I asked them what they would expect to see in a Pop Music Video now. The results showed me that I need to be dependant on Performance, Bright Colours, Costume, Props and Clear Settings. I definatly need to make my music video bright and vibrant. I will do this by thinking about the colours of the setting and costume and possibly think about changing the saturation of the scenes when at the editing stage. I have only shown a few comments for each of the last questions. The feedback shows me that I need to include a lot of 'singing and dancing' and I need to show a lot of 'personality' and character through the artist. I also asked who were my target audiences favourite female Pop music artist now.. A lot of the answers were Katy Perry, Rihanna and Lady Gaga. I will research more into these artists and see how I could make my artist similar to them.

Next I will build a artist profile of the 'artist' that I will be using for my video.



Target Audience Survey

I designed a short survey asking my target audience what they generally expect to see in a   Pop Music Video. The outcome of this survey will tell me what I defiantly need to include in my Music Video, even including certain colours they expect to see, or colours that are dominant in Pop Music Video's now... 

http://surveymonkey.com/s/XBS9BSG

I used the social networking site 'Twitter' to share my survey so I could collect the appropriate data to help me with my research. My twitter is full of my target group so I am hoping for great feedback!

Introduction

The song I am going to use for my music video is Free by Natalia Kills. The genre of this song is 'pop'. I decided to use this specific genre because I personally think it'll be more fun to work with, giving me a chance to use a variety of shots to portray a pop music video that we see now.
I wanted to portray the 'artist' in my music video as opposite than 'Natalia Kills'.

Annotation of 'Free' lyrics

Here I have carried out an annotation of the song lyrics. By doing this it really helped me with my research and planning. By reading through the lyrics it is easy to pick out ideas for the music video. Small annotations could then lead on to better research into a certain thing and create a good idea. This also links to Andrew Goodwins theory of a relationship between the lyrics and visuals. As you can see I already have an idea of intertextual references that I could use, relationships between the lyrics and visuals and music with visual. For example the piano beat at the beginning could be of a piano, along with the beat of the song (linking visuals with music). Here I have scanned in the annotations of the lyrics and ideas that I have came up with just from the lyrics.

Artist Profile

Natalia Kills

Natalia Kills is a 25 year old English singer and song writer , and short film director who performs under the name as Natalia Kills. She released her first single "Don't Play Nice" under the name Verbalicious in February 2005. She released her debut album, Perfectionist, under the name Natalia Kills in April 2011.

Birth name	Natalia Keery-Fisher
Also known as	Candy Rapper, Verbz, Verbalicious,Natalia Noemi Cappuccini,Verse
Born	15 August 1986 (1986-08-15) (age 25)Bradford, West Yorkshire, England
Genres	Pop, electropop
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, actress, director
Instruments	Vocals, drums, guitar
Years active	1995–present
Labels	Adventures in Music, will.i.am, Cherrytree, Kon Live, Interscope, Bozadya, Dandyville
Associated acts	Far East Movement, LMFAO, will.i.am
Website	nataliakills.com

My Song

Song's that I was considering...

Dolly Rockers - Gold Digger

If you click on the link above you can see the video 'Gold Digger'. I remember this song and video coming out around 2 years ago and not being very successful in the charts. I thought the song was very quirky and comical - along with the comical video going with the song. I want my video to be comical but only to an extent. I would like to take the 'ditsyness' of the 3 main singers to influence the artist in my video. The reason why I didn't wish to use this specific video was because I think that the existing video would influence my own too much as there is not much you could do with the lyrics (as I noticed that the lyrics are all the same throughout the song). Also, I do not think this song could have much of a narrative, which I would like in my music video.

Jessie J - Rainbow 

This is another song choice that I was considering. Off of Jessie J's 2011 album, the song 'Rainbow' seems to have a good narrative judging by the lyrics. I really like the way the artist sings and I can imagine the attitude and the way she sings it if she was ever to release a video to this song. The reason why I didnt end up choosing this song is because as a well known artist, her voice is very familiar and it would be hard to make a video of someone else covering her voice as it is so recognisable and unique. I like the tempo of this song and of the song above - so I definatly want a song with an up beat 'pop' tempo.

Star Image

Britney Spears

Labelled ‘Pop Princess’ since the late 90’s, Britney Spears was a pop sensation at the young age of 17. Britney was signed to ‘Jive Records’ in 1997, releasing her debut album ‘Baby One More Time’ two years later selling over 13million copies. Being in the limelight for 10 years the audience can see the change and differences in her career.

Britney’s first video ‘Baby one more time’ 1999, was filmed in a typical American high school – which is relevant as she was young at the time and probably wanted to aim the video at her teenage fans. The typical American high school is portrayed through the setting and costume. The costumes Include school uniforms with pigtails and pink fluffy hair ties which portrays her as sweet and innocent. In another scene she is wearing ‘gym clothes’ which may portray her as one of the sporty/popular girls in school. Every time was released 5 years later in 2004. The video was a response to Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River (2002), after they split in 2001. The video shows Spear’s as a star getting hounded by paparazzi and fans and eventually kills herself by taking an overdose of drugs and drowning in the bath. This specific suicide scene was believed to be a response to rumours that suggested that she had a mental disorder. The video portrayed Spear’s as angelic and vulnerable, due to the clothing she’s wearing in the ‘heaven’ after she has taken her own life. The director David LaChappelle wanted to give the video a cinematic feel, referencing to the 1955 film Leaving Las Vegas. Therefore this video is referencing to her life, and the pressure she has to deal with in day to day life. Her music video Lucky (2001) also has a narrative that slightly represents her personal life, as the video was based on a loved star (actress) that has everything but is still lonely and has something missing in her life despite having wealth, beauty and fame.
Being portrayed as angelic and vulnerable is a reoccurring theme throughout her videos and tends to be represented this way. For example in Sometimes (1999) – she wears the colour white, which represents her purity, as she stated herself to be a virgin until marriage. She also wears white and is represented in Every time (as said above) and is also acting as a guardian angel narrator in Lucky (2001) which again portrays her innocence.

As the years went by Spears’ image changed and her video’s and songs started to become more

(unfinished)

Textual analysis of Katy Perry’s – Waking up in Vegas music video

I am analysing Katy Perry’s video to Waking up in Vegas, directed by Joseph Kahn. The genre of this song is Pop/Rock. Nowadays genres are converged as they often do not fit just one of the genre characteristics. The term ‘pop’ used to be very limited, whereas now it’s very broad in terms of genre. ‘Waking up in Vegas’ has been categorized with pop/rock because of the elements of ‘rock instruments’ used in the song such as guitars and drums.
The general genre characteristic of Pop (popular) music is that it intends to encourage dancing, or uses dance beats or dance orientated rhythms. It should have ‘artistic’ qualities and an emphasis on recording, production and technology over live performance. Also, most importantly pop music/videos tend to follow recent and existing trends. This is important as it shows us who the main target audiences of pop music are... Such as teenagers/young adults who are always in the centre of existing trends. A lot of pop music videos are very vibrant, colourful and bold, including a lot of costume and scene changes of the artist/band.
In Waking up in Vegas, the artist Katy Perry has several costume changes that are shown through out the video back and forth.
The first of her outfits is a glamorous red ball gown that is worn at the beginning. The colour of her costume in this scene is very important because the dominant colours of the whole video is red and black – which are the colours we associate with Vegas and roulette. Sophistication and glamour are the connotations of red, representing Katy as very glam in her video. The other outfits that she wears are a ‘street’ style outfit (when she is gambling), a silver sequinned outfit with a Barbie pink blazer and diamond hooped earrings, a ‘queen of hearts’ card outfit, 2 ‘frapper girl’ style outfits and lastly glittery hot pants (when she’s in the money booth).  All these outfits are significant to her video, and link the lyrics and visuals together.

There is a very close relationship between the lyrics and visuals in the video as they link and go together very well. The visuals tell the story along with the lyrics. For example when Katy and her boyfriend are in a little white chapel style church getting married the lyrics say ‘Did we get hitched last night? Dressed up like Elvis. Why am I wearing, your class ring’. She sings these lyrics and points out the ‘class ring’ on her marriage finger whilst an Elvis impersonator is in the background. This is a typical stereotype of Vegas, (having a last minute marriages and not remembering in the morning ect).
The music also links with the visuals as the video cuts to the beat of the song. The fast pace of the beat links with the quick editing and shots. The video changes pace with the music. For example towards the end of the song the pace starts to slow down, the video doesn’t cut to other scenes and just focuses on one scene rather than loads at the same time.
There are many close ups of Katy throughout the whole of the video, making her the focal point of the whole video. There is voyeurism used in the song, when Katy is driving the Lamborghini, she looks at her iPod that is plugged into the car and the screen shows the song ‘Waking up in Vegas’ and her album cover. This is as if she is listening along to the song when we are, and also promoting her album/song and herself. The video relates to other video’s of the artists such as ‘Hot n Cold’, ‘California girls’ and her recent video ‘Last Friday Night’, as it is very fun and Katy seems to always play a very fun character in all of her video’s especially the ones I mentioned.

In this video Katy is obviously portrayed as an icon and someone her fans should look up to, and unlike most female artists, she is not on sexual display like other artists, as she is displayed more as a icon and suitable for all ages to watch eg children. This is important because it links with the genre of music, as a lot of ‘pop’ music artists have to be suitable for a younger target audience, as they are more likely to like the genre.

Narrative Analysis

Katy Perry - California Girls

The video I chose to look at is Katy Perry – California Girls. I am going to focus on analysing the narrative based on the three main theorists, Todorov, Propp and Levi-Strauss. I believe that this music video focuses specifically on Todorov’s theory which is ‘5 conventional stages’ as the video is told in chronological order and has an equilibrium, disequilibrium and a new equilibrium.
The equilibrium in the video would be Snoop dog being the controller over ‘Candyfornia’ – the imaginary (game board) land where the video is set.
The disequilibrium would be Katy Perry discovering the land.
The recognition and reparation of the video would be finding and releasing the captured girls she finds in Candyfornia.  
The new equilibrium is when Katy Perry and the other girls all stop the controller of the land and bury him in the sand (Snoop Dog), as if they won the board game, beating snoop dog at he’s own game.
This video could also have references to Levi-Strauss’ theory and Propp’s theory. Because the video is only roughly 3 minutes long, it doesn’t have time to represent all characters in Propp’s theory. The characters that are shown is a hero (Katy) and villain (Snoop).  Levi-Strauss’ theory of the binary oppositions were shown in the video were good & bad. Good being Katy Perry and bad being Snoop Dog.

Though this is a music video, it still has a single diegesis, known as the standard Hollywood narrative structure (one main storyline). This is convenient because the whole video has a relation to Hollywood. For example the icing of the Hollywood sign suggests that the Candy world in the video is an imitation of Hollywood, for example a ‘dream land’ which we all link Hollywood to be.
I think this video has a lot of inspiration from the film Charlie and the chocolate factory, with a story of a strange land full of sweets and happiness (in the end). There is a strong sense of narrative structure in the video. It has been edited so that we know the background of the story. With quick shots that show Katy in many different locations and outfits we can see the length of her mission in the ‘board game’.  The video follows a clear linear narrative with a basic storyline.

Most 'Popular' Female Singers

Here are some images of female 'Pop' artists who's images will inspire me. I wanted to look at overall images of different female artists to see what their specific image and representation was and what the difference was between them. From these images you can see that not all of them are portrayed sexually, but some are. 

Target Group

When I was researching female artists (especially Pop artsits) I realised that they mainly target girls/ females over the age of 16/17. I noticed this as the music and videos now have quite a bit of sexual references and wouldn't include this in their work if their audiences were younger. I also noticed that the way they dress now is more sexy and suggestive than maybe they were 10 - 15 years ago. Girls of the age 16 - 20 tend to pick up more on an artists image and tend to want to become more like the artist at this age.. for example the clothes they wear, style ect...
I have decided to make my target group 16 - 19 year olds as I know that they are the main target group/ fans for female pop artists nowdays.
I will research into my target group and create surveys that will include them, giving me appropriate feedback that I will use to create a concept for my music video.