Britney Spears - If You Seek Amy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FehBgQeVKFQ
Beyoncé Knowles - Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g
These are the videos that i have compared. They were both directed by Jake Nava, who has done alot of modern music videos.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Task 3 - Music Video Director Research
Jake Nava was born in Hackney, London and then moved to the USA, He has worked for a lot of current Pop and R ‘n’ B artists and strangely The Rolling Stones, so he is quite diverse in his work. He often works for Britney Spears and Beyoncé Knowles and has made a lot of videos with them. He’s also done a lot of advertisements in his career and Beyoncé is quite a recurring theme as she starred in one of his adverts for Armani.
His target audience for his music videos is probably anyone who is interested in Pop/ R ’n’ B music ages from 16ish to 30. But obviously anyone who doesn’t fit into that probably will like them too.
There isn’t really much about Jake Nava on the Internet, but I can only assume he’s quite revered in the showbiz world as he has directed a whole lot of music videos for very popular, very current artists.
He does seem to have a bit of a style which is a lot of close-ups and wide-shots used in his videos and a lot of Black and White techniques.
He also seems to like slightly strange out of the ordinary shots instead of the plain ones.
Bibliography (Even though I don't know if we need one.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Nava
16/11/09 23:01
:)
His target audience for his music videos is probably anyone who is interested in Pop/ R ’n’ B music ages from 16ish to 30. But obviously anyone who doesn’t fit into that probably will like them too.
There isn’t really much about Jake Nava on the Internet, but I can only assume he’s quite revered in the showbiz world as he has directed a whole lot of music videos for very popular, very current artists.
He does seem to have a bit of a style which is a lot of close-ups and wide-shots used in his videos and a lot of Black and White techniques.
He also seems to like slightly strange out of the ordinary shots instead of the plain ones.
Bibliography (Even though I don't know if we need one.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Nava
16/11/09 23:01
:)
Task 2 - Contemporary Video Research
The two contemporary music videos that I am going to compare are If You Seek Amy by Britney Spears and Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) by Beyoncé Knowles both directed by Jake Nava.
If You Seek Amy was the third single from Britney Spears from her third studio album: Circus, the name is quite an obvious double entendre which basically spells out F.U.C.K me. It apparently isn’t about sex but how she perceives life, which really goes to show how arrogant she is.
I like the video because it’s really weird. It starts out with an American newsreader on a faux news programme with the headline “Britney Spears song lyrics spell out obscenity in disguise”. It seems that Britney plays on that as it cuts to some sort of strange sex party which is finishing. This goes on for quite a while until the middle section in which Britney sports a stereotypically 50’s housewife outfit and style of hair, she then picks up a pie and walks outside with her husband and children all dressed in this style to meet a whole lot of paparazzi. Britney does the stereotypical Britney thing of blowing a kiss and then it cuts back to the newsreader saying: “It doesn’t make any sense does it?” Quite. It really is rather nonsensical but maybe she’s trying to say that in public life she’s a model citizen but when she get’s home the wig comes off and she parties hard, which is anything is the reverse of the truth.
It’s of the pop genre, and I think it shows this quite well as quite a lot of music videos nowadays are really different, strange and odd or very straight forward. There’s never really any middle ground in this genre.
The video has a narrative running through it; even if it doesn’t make much sense. It’s also very much about Britney’s image as she mentions her previous single “Piece of Me” from the album “Blackout” which a lot of her songs do.
The middle part of the video is very much part of the codes and conventions as most music videos are somewhat about the song’s subject matter and as it’s a bit of a sex song and in the video there is a bit of a sex theme. However the last 40 seconds or so are very odd because it isn’t much to do with the subject matter and I think they put that in there just to make it somewhat more interesting as watching the end of a sex party for 3 minutes or so could get very boring unless you’re that way inclined.
The mise-en-scene is rather typical too, as throughout the video she’s pulling her “Sexy” face which makes sense to what she’s singing about. She’s also not wearing much during this part. The 50’s influenced bit is rather good too, because she’d doing the 50’s housewife smile and holding a pie, with her husband and two children; a boy and a girl, basically the perfect family in the 50’s
Also in the video her “daughter” is wearing a smaller less sexual version of the costume she wore in her first video “…Baby One More Time”
Which is think is her saying “I’m not a little girl now I’m a sexy women now… who is also a mother.” Also I think it also means that she still has quite a lot of fun, and to her, her family is perfect. Although this is just my input and it might just be there for the hell of it. I don’t reckon though.
Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) is from Beyoncé’s 2nd studio album I am… Sasha Fierce. The music video was shot concurrently with the video from “If I Were a Boy”, and most of the money was spent on that one and the style is based on Madonna’s Vogue photo shoot, says Jake Nava. Beyoncé has an alter-ego for the stage called Sasha Fierce, and in this video she plays her, she seems much fierier than ordinary nice Beyoncé and obviously oozes sex appeal.
The video is just performance and was shot in three parts and edited together to look like it was shot in one take continuously.
Also apparently another inspiration for the music video is Gwen Verdon’s dance from The Ed Sullivan Show called Mexican Breakfast that was performed in June 1969, and i've posted a video of the bit's Beyoncé nicked below ;)
The Song and Music Video is all about Female Empowerment and as Beyoncé is performing as Sasha Fierce who is obviously very much a feminist and a complete diva. Although what I get from the song is that a man has lost his girlfriend because he wouldn’t marry her; which I’m going to assume is a synonym for not committing adequately enough for the likes of this big powerful woman.
It is of the R n B and Dance-pop genres because it has a high speed and catchy lyrics and music which is therefore reflected in the video. I completely understand why Jake Nava decided to do a performance video for this song as there isn’t anything else you can do for such a high speed full-frontal song like this one as it doesn’t really have a very strong narrative and it’s not really about Beyoncé but her Alter-Ego Sasha Fierce, as this I guess is her debut it has Sasha’s image splashed all over it. It also has a minimalistic quality as it’s in black-and-white and it’s just Beyoncé and two dancers who look rather similar dancing with fabulous choreography.
Proof that it is a fantastic video is also that they didn’t spend much on it and it wasn’t supposed to be the main single at all, If I Were a Boy was supposed to be the “Hit”. This just goes to show how music video’s are critical to the artist as If I were a Boy was a good song and a good video but the simpler cheaper Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) was a much bigger hit winning Video Of The Year on the VMA’s.
If You Seek Amy and Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) are similar in many ways in which they both have a lot of sex appeal and are both rather simple and don’t tell much of a story, this is exaggerated in Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)’s case. Beyoncé and Britney are both big megastars and are aiming for the same audience with there songs. Which is mainly 16 and over’s but younger children will also enjoy them if only because they are pretty catchy.
Bibliography!
It's very short.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_you_seek_amy
16/11/09 22:09
http://candipop08group1.blogspot.com/2008/09/codes-and-conventions-of-music-videos.html
16/11/09 22:13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Ladies_(Put_a_Ring_on_It)
16/11/09 22:35
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1621294/20090911/knowles_beyonce.jhtml
16/11/09 22:49
And ME :D
21/09/1991 18:30 ish Onwards. :D
If You Seek Amy was the third single from Britney Spears from her third studio album: Circus, the name is quite an obvious double entendre which basically spells out F.U.C.K me. It apparently isn’t about sex but how she perceives life, which really goes to show how arrogant she is.
I like the video because it’s really weird. It starts out with an American newsreader on a faux news programme with the headline “Britney Spears song lyrics spell out obscenity in disguise”. It seems that Britney plays on that as it cuts to some sort of strange sex party which is finishing. This goes on for quite a while until the middle section in which Britney sports a stereotypically 50’s housewife outfit and style of hair, she then picks up a pie and walks outside with her husband and children all dressed in this style to meet a whole lot of paparazzi. Britney does the stereotypical Britney thing of blowing a kiss and then it cuts back to the newsreader saying: “It doesn’t make any sense does it?” Quite. It really is rather nonsensical but maybe she’s trying to say that in public life she’s a model citizen but when she get’s home the wig comes off and she parties hard, which is anything is the reverse of the truth.
It’s of the pop genre, and I think it shows this quite well as quite a lot of music videos nowadays are really different, strange and odd or very straight forward. There’s never really any middle ground in this genre.
The video has a narrative running through it; even if it doesn’t make much sense. It’s also very much about Britney’s image as she mentions her previous single “Piece of Me” from the album “Blackout” which a lot of her songs do.
The middle part of the video is very much part of the codes and conventions as most music videos are somewhat about the song’s subject matter and as it’s a bit of a sex song and in the video there is a bit of a sex theme. However the last 40 seconds or so are very odd because it isn’t much to do with the subject matter and I think they put that in there just to make it somewhat more interesting as watching the end of a sex party for 3 minutes or so could get very boring unless you’re that way inclined.
The mise-en-scene is rather typical too, as throughout the video she’s pulling her “Sexy” face which makes sense to what she’s singing about. She’s also not wearing much during this part. The 50’s influenced bit is rather good too, because she’d doing the 50’s housewife smile and holding a pie, with her husband and two children; a boy and a girl, basically the perfect family in the 50’s
Also in the video her “daughter” is wearing a smaller less sexual version of the costume she wore in her first video “…Baby One More Time”
Which is think is her saying “I’m not a little girl now I’m a sexy women now… who is also a mother.” Also I think it also means that she still has quite a lot of fun, and to her, her family is perfect. Although this is just my input and it might just be there for the hell of it. I don’t reckon though.
Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) is from Beyoncé’s 2nd studio album I am… Sasha Fierce. The music video was shot concurrently with the video from “If I Were a Boy”, and most of the money was spent on that one and the style is based on Madonna’s Vogue photo shoot, says Jake Nava. Beyoncé has an alter-ego for the stage called Sasha Fierce, and in this video she plays her, she seems much fierier than ordinary nice Beyoncé and obviously oozes sex appeal.
The video is just performance and was shot in three parts and edited together to look like it was shot in one take continuously.
Also apparently another inspiration for the music video is Gwen Verdon’s dance from The Ed Sullivan Show called Mexican Breakfast that was performed in June 1969, and i've posted a video of the bit's Beyoncé nicked below ;)
The Song and Music Video is all about Female Empowerment and as Beyoncé is performing as Sasha Fierce who is obviously very much a feminist and a complete diva. Although what I get from the song is that a man has lost his girlfriend because he wouldn’t marry her; which I’m going to assume is a synonym for not committing adequately enough for the likes of this big powerful woman.
It is of the R n B and Dance-pop genres because it has a high speed and catchy lyrics and music which is therefore reflected in the video. I completely understand why Jake Nava decided to do a performance video for this song as there isn’t anything else you can do for such a high speed full-frontal song like this one as it doesn’t really have a very strong narrative and it’s not really about Beyoncé but her Alter-Ego Sasha Fierce, as this I guess is her debut it has Sasha’s image splashed all over it. It also has a minimalistic quality as it’s in black-and-white and it’s just Beyoncé and two dancers who look rather similar dancing with fabulous choreography.
Proof that it is a fantastic video is also that they didn’t spend much on it and it wasn’t supposed to be the main single at all, If I Were a Boy was supposed to be the “Hit”. This just goes to show how music video’s are critical to the artist as If I were a Boy was a good song and a good video but the simpler cheaper Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) was a much bigger hit winning Video Of The Year on the VMA’s.
If You Seek Amy and Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) are similar in many ways in which they both have a lot of sex appeal and are both rather simple and don’t tell much of a story, this is exaggerated in Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)’s case. Beyoncé and Britney are both big megastars and are aiming for the same audience with there songs. Which is mainly 16 and over’s but younger children will also enjoy them if only because they are pretty catchy.
Bibliography!
It's very short.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_you_seek_amy
16/11/09 22:09
http://candipop08group1.blogspot.com/2008/09/codes-and-conventions-of-music-videos.html
16/11/09 22:13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Ladies_(Put_a_Ring_on_It)
16/11/09 22:35
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1621294/20090911/knowles_beyonce.jhtml
16/11/09 22:49
And ME :D
21/09/1991 18:30 ish Onwards. :D
Task 1 - Purposes Of Music Videos
The purposes of music video’s are for promotion; promoting the artist, the single and the album; without music videos life would be much harder for the artist as instead of producing a music video that can easily be sent to various television networks, they would have to travel to individual studios to perform on stage, which is a lot more time consuming and more expensive in the long term. The first single’s music video tends to have the biggest budget and a more complicated narrative as when the artist releases the 3rd or 4th single of the album, it’s basically being produced for far less people as a lot of people would have rushed to purchase the album after the 1st and 2nd single’s had came out, so producing high budget mini-movie’s would be time and money wasting.
Music videos are also seen somewhat as a status symbol by the artist; if an artist produces a very high standard of promotional video for a single that has a big budget with a well-known director, then everyone can see that the artist is a major name of the music world and definitely worth watching and listening too, also no matter if you really dislike an artist, if they have a really good music video some people could watch them just for that aspect, so it’s all about coverage and marketing of an artist.
Music Video’s that are of current long-standing musicians such as Madonna, Kylie Minogue and the late Michael Jackson were always much flashier and seen more of a status symbol with usually not much to do with the actual lyrical content of the single, but they naturally have a much wider range of resources to use such as bigger producers and directors then a musician that has just broke into the industry and it’s there first music video.
Music Video’s can also improve an artist’s reputation as being a serious artist with consistently good tracks and a lot of staying power, as if you have a great music video, that get’s loads of hits on YouTube and a lot of people tune in to see the Television premiere of the artists new music video at 1 o’clock in the morning on Channel 4, then you know that the artist is very popular and is making the most money for their companies, managers and producers, so then the artist’s producers, companies and managers are going to be more likely to spend the big money on them as they know it will be a guaranteed money-maker.
However, you don’t necessarily need a big music video to make a track a big hit, take for example two singles of Michael Jackson’s; “Scream” and “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”. The former cost 1 million pounds to make and it’s widely regarded to be a bit of critical failure, as opposed to the latter, which was his first music video and cost the least to make out of all and was much more widely regarded so it shows that you don’t necessarily have to spend inordinate amounts of money on a music video for it to be a big hit.
The most widely renowned music video’s are always the one’s that make the most impact on the viewer, whether controversial or not, if there is a lot of public interest about a video then naturally more people will want to watch it.
Another problem of music videos is that sometimes the artist makes a good video for a very poor song, a recent case of this is Cheryl Cole’s 3 Words, which I actually rank in the worst 10 songs I’ve ever heard, and it has quite an interesting video that I had to watch on mute because it’s the most tediously boring song ever. Generally however, nobody will be bothered to sit through 4 minutes of a really boring annoying track even if the music video is a massive work of art.
The first music videos were first made in the 60’s with the Beatles and they weren’t much like the one’s we are used to now, they were very performance based and they fitted the needs of a very sort-after band and prevented the group from flying around Europe five times a day to perform on various shows. Then these evolved during the 70’s when Queen made Bohemian Rhapsody, which was filmed in a few days in a pub, with various new camera techniques and it excited there fans a lot.
The first “modern” Music video was Michael Jackson’s Thriller in which it was a 25 minute long short film. That was very narrative based and had a very soft core slasher theme throughout, such as the 40’s Universal Films.
Also in the 80’s MTV started; and that’s when British acts started coming to the forefront again, as only British acts really had music videos and there was only about 100 of them to choose from so MTV would rotate them a lot and thus helped popularise the British Music Scene again.
Music videos are also seen somewhat as a status symbol by the artist; if an artist produces a very high standard of promotional video for a single that has a big budget with a well-known director, then everyone can see that the artist is a major name of the music world and definitely worth watching and listening too, also no matter if you really dislike an artist, if they have a really good music video some people could watch them just for that aspect, so it’s all about coverage and marketing of an artist.
Music Video’s that are of current long-standing musicians such as Madonna, Kylie Minogue and the late Michael Jackson were always much flashier and seen more of a status symbol with usually not much to do with the actual lyrical content of the single, but they naturally have a much wider range of resources to use such as bigger producers and directors then a musician that has just broke into the industry and it’s there first music video.
Music Video’s can also improve an artist’s reputation as being a serious artist with consistently good tracks and a lot of staying power, as if you have a great music video, that get’s loads of hits on YouTube and a lot of people tune in to see the Television premiere of the artists new music video at 1 o’clock in the morning on Channel 4, then you know that the artist is very popular and is making the most money for their companies, managers and producers, so then the artist’s producers, companies and managers are going to be more likely to spend the big money on them as they know it will be a guaranteed money-maker.
However, you don’t necessarily need a big music video to make a track a big hit, take for example two singles of Michael Jackson’s; “Scream” and “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”. The former cost 1 million pounds to make and it’s widely regarded to be a bit of critical failure, as opposed to the latter, which was his first music video and cost the least to make out of all and was much more widely regarded so it shows that you don’t necessarily have to spend inordinate amounts of money on a music video for it to be a big hit.
The most widely renowned music video’s are always the one’s that make the most impact on the viewer, whether controversial or not, if there is a lot of public interest about a video then naturally more people will want to watch it.
Another problem of music videos is that sometimes the artist makes a good video for a very poor song, a recent case of this is Cheryl Cole’s 3 Words, which I actually rank in the worst 10 songs I’ve ever heard, and it has quite an interesting video that I had to watch on mute because it’s the most tediously boring song ever. Generally however, nobody will be bothered to sit through 4 minutes of a really boring annoying track even if the music video is a massive work of art.
The first music videos were first made in the 60’s with the Beatles and they weren’t much like the one’s we are used to now, they were very performance based and they fitted the needs of a very sort-after band and prevented the group from flying around Europe five times a day to perform on various shows. Then these evolved during the 70’s when Queen made Bohemian Rhapsody, which was filmed in a few days in a pub, with various new camera techniques and it excited there fans a lot.
The first “modern” Music video was Michael Jackson’s Thriller in which it was a 25 minute long short film. That was very narrative based and had a very soft core slasher theme throughout, such as the 40’s Universal Films.
Also in the 80’s MTV started; and that’s when British acts started coming to the forefront again, as only British acts really had music videos and there was only about 100 of them to choose from so MTV would rotate them a lot and thus helped popularise the British Music Scene again.
One Day Lip Sync Project
Seriously, Why doesn't it let me put videos in?!
But anyway, here is Lucy, Hannah and My One Day Lip Sync
Just in case it doesn't work, which is very highly likely because as we have all found out, blogger hates me. :) Here's the link ;)
Which may or not work because i think the internet hates me. Although mainly blogger. It is a cruel mistress.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFTyC4HoyXY
Well, basically last monday Hannah, Lucy and I had to make a tiny little music video which showed us lip sync-ing along to a song that John Dempsey gave us, which was MC Hammer U Can't Touch This. So naturally we got a camera and went to the dance studio. I never claimed to be a dancer and you can see the results here. Although i like it. We then went on the Mac and Started editing it down from like 2 hours of footage to fit in with about 4 minutes of song. It was rather a hard song as it's so fast it needs alot of stuff and we almost pretty much ran out of things to put in. There's a few shots of the girls bouncing up and down the stairs in a fun fashion and quite a lot of Hannahs dance skills showing mine up spectacularly. Also the little green man was in the dance studio and we asked him if he wanted to be in our video so he did his thing, which i found rather amusing and then we put it in :)
It is all good in the hood (Y)
It is all fun and games, until somebody gets hurt. Luckily no one did so it was just fun and games :)
But anyway, here is Lucy, Hannah and My One Day Lip Sync
Just in case it doesn't work, which is very highly likely because as we have all found out, blogger hates me. :) Here's the link ;)
Which may or not work because i think the internet hates me. Although mainly blogger. It is a cruel mistress.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFTyC4HoyXY
Well, basically last monday Hannah, Lucy and I had to make a tiny little music video which showed us lip sync-ing along to a song that John Dempsey gave us, which was MC Hammer U Can't Touch This. So naturally we got a camera and went to the dance studio. I never claimed to be a dancer and you can see the results here. Although i like it. We then went on the Mac and Started editing it down from like 2 hours of footage to fit in with about 4 minutes of song. It was rather a hard song as it's so fast it needs alot of stuff and we almost pretty much ran out of things to put in. There's a few shots of the girls bouncing up and down the stairs in a fun fashion and quite a lot of Hannahs dance skills showing mine up spectacularly. Also the little green man was in the dance studio and we asked him if he wanted to be in our video so he did his thing, which i found rather amusing and then we put it in :)
It is all good in the hood (Y)
It is all fun and games, until somebody gets hurt. Luckily no one did so it was just fun and games :)
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