2 music videos of choice

On call – Kings of Leon
Genre:
Indie – Rock. We know this from the focus on instruments and music instead of appearance and dance routines. And also the sound is very indie.

Audience/channel:
The audience for this type of music is quite broad, teens to adults mostly. It’s the kind of music that most people can relate to. The channel it would most likely be on is MTV2.

Aspects of performance and modes of address:
The video uses direct mode of address as all members of the band look into the camera and the vast majority of the singing is done to the camera. We feel like we are be spoken to. There is no narrative or story line used in the video, with the focus being on the music. This makes them come across as serious musicians. The performance is more sombre and quiet than most music videos as they are promising to ‘be there’ and are taking it seriously.

Narrative:
The narrative is linear as it all moves in a straight time line. There is no story line for this video.

How the video reflects or produces an image for the star artist or band:
The video gives the band an image of being proper musicians as they are all playing their instruments and singing their own songs. They want to show that they are the real thing and not mass produced. Aspects of the video are very typical of the genre of music. For example all the members of the band are in the video and there isn’t a story line.

How the visual elements relate to the song; Amplification, disjuncture or illustration:
The video is mostly a contradiction to the song, with most of it not really following the lyrics at all, but there are aspects of amplification. The background of the video changes from day to night, this could be signifying that they are ‘on call’ whenever which is what the lyrics are saying.

Use of camera:
There are lots of close up’s of the band members, especially the lead singer whilst he lip-syncs. There are also lots of shots of them playing the instruments I.e. a close up of the guitar strings being strummed; this again reinforces the concept that they are true musicians. There are quite a few shaky frames, mostly close up’s of band members, these give an interesting and abstract look.
There is a wide shot of the whole band, and when the initial strong beat of the song kicks in it zooms from Caleb to the whole band.

Editing:
The first shot of the video is there bands feet walking in a straight line against a white background, this blends in time to the music to a wide shot of the whole band. There is slow motion used in certain shots of instruments being played. Pulling focus is used quite a lot in the video, and the pace of editing is slow at first, but gets faster, which matches the beat.

Mise en scene:
Lighting- Timed to music. At the start there are lots of beams and flashes of light as the beat kicks in. As the background changes, the lighting on the band changes from being bright light, to being a dull light.
Costume- They are all wearing black, again showing that they are focusing on the music and not appearance. It is also a serious look, which matches the mood. It also shows them as quite normal people as they are not at all over the top.

Setting- Just a studio somewhere, looks like a normal band set up.

Props- Instruments are the key feature.


You belong with me - Taylor swift

Genre:
Pop/country

Audience/channel:
The audience is teens to young adults and the channels it would most likely be shown on most of the music channels as its quite mainstream.

Aspects of performance and modes of address:
The video uses a mixture of direct and indirect address. There is a story to the video but there is also a lot of lip-syncing. The performance is that of a normal teenage girl, nothing over the top and no dance routines. The video reflects normal teenage life and so will allow people to connect to it.

Narrative:
The narrative is linear as it only goes forward in time. The story is that a girl likes a boy, but he has a girlfriend that doesn’t ‘get him’. The girl tries to get him to realise that they should be together, and in the end they are. This is a simple story that a lot of people will enjoy and/or relate to, so it’s good for catching audiences.

How the video reflects or produces an image for the star artist or band:
The video portrays her as a very normal girl, she has boy problems like most teenage girls and this makes her relatable. Her character is portrayed as slightly geeky, which shows the artist is willing to look silly, and not always be over made up constantly like other artists from this genre.

How do the visual elements relate to the song; amplification, illustration or disjuncture:
The video illustrates the lyrics. It has taken the story from the song and created the visuals to match it exactly. This makes it easy to watch as we are not trying to understand what the video is about.

Mise en scene:
Costume- Taylor wears normal everyday clothes that are not over the top and not revealing, both of these traits are common to the genre. At the end she wears a white prom-style dress and the kids at her school all look at her. This is supposed to show that she has come out of her shell and they all think she looks beautiful.
Setting- The video is set in her room as she talks through the window to the boy, at high school and a bus stop. Again these are all very normal places, reinforcing her normality.
Prop- She wears big glasses through most of the video, the kind that most people would consider to be geeky. At the end she takes them off, the taking off of the glasses could signify her blossoming.

Use of camera:
There is a Hollywood montage of her dancing in front of her mirror in different styles of clothes and hair-do’s. Lots of extreme and normal close ups of Taylor are used when she lip-syncs.

Editing:
The pace of editing is mostly slow paced, but in parts it speeds up when the music does and also to show more aspects of what is going on. There are a lot of shot reverse shots used in the video, these are used to show the relationship between her and the boy.

Special effects:
The video doesn’t use any special effects.