1st Draft Of Our Music Video

This is our first draft of our long and awaited music video. The original song is just over 4 minutes long but as you can see we have just cut it to just under 3 minutes.

Genre Of Song

"Hurt" is a power ballad written by Christina Aguilera, Linda Perry and Mark Ronson for Aguilera's third studio album, Back to Basics (2006). Ballads have come in all different styles and are especially popular amongst British and the Irish culture. Power ballads came into existence in the early 1970s, when rock stars attempted to convey profound messages to audiences. The most common use of the term ballad in modern pop music is for an emotional love song. When the word ballad appears in the title of a song, as for example in Beatle’s "The Ballad of John and Yoko". The ballad probably derives its name from medieval French dance songs or (from which we also get ballet), as did the alternative rival form that became the French Ballad.

Summary of Original Video

The video see Christina Aguilera portraying a '40s circus star for the song. The video begins with the ending instrumental to "Enter the circus"/"Welcome", over which a carnival barker introduces a spectacular circus, and begins in black and white. Aguilera appears in an old fashioned dressing room, receiving flowers and then an important telegram. A flashback then shows young Aguilera, with her father. With her father's encouragement, Aguilera begins to train herself to do the same. When the video switches to older Aguilera, we see her descending from the top of a circus tent on a rope, onto the back of an elephant, in point shoes and a structured jewled outfit, with her father watching adoringly in the audience. She later attempts to greet him but is pulled away by fans and photographers keen to meet the star. The content of the telegram is then revealed to be a message of her father's death, and as Aguilera realizes that she was too wrapped up in her stardom to deal with what matters, she races through the circus in a belated attempt to find her father. The video ends with a shot of Aguilera sitting on a circus box, singing and crying, before fading out to Aguilera's grief-stricken form on the ground outside the circus tent.

Lyric Annottaion (Christina Aguilera - Hurt)

Lana and I have carefully annotated the lyrics for the song that we have chosen for my music video. We made sure that we looked into what part of the song goes with which particular part of the video.

Magazine Advert (Black Eyed Peas)

The artist of this music poster advert is from the Black Eyed Peas. They are promoting their fourth studio album “Monkey Business” which as gone on to sell over 10 million albums worldwide. The bands as artists are unlike what we see in the music world today. As artists the Black Eyed Peas have shown themselves to be quite quirky and have an unusual style. They have purposely shown themselves to be rebellious as they are all doing what they want to do. Taboo who is the rapper in the green is definitely the unruly one as he is using a finger gesture which is seen in some countries as offensive. They present themselves as a fun and diverse band to the public and this has served them well in the music industry.

The colours that have been used for this magazine advert have been chosen for a particular reason. The striped design and colours were also used in their music video for ‘Hey Mama’ which they have used to promote that song. The colours are quite funky and look like they belong to a circus theme. The colours are mainly red and yellow which are bright colours but they have made the colours not so light so it doesn’t take the attention off the information about their concert and them as artists. The bands clothes are quite bright as they are wearing green, blue, brown and orange as well and clash with the colours used in the background to really make the poster stand out. The poster as a whole is quite fun, the colours suggest that the tour will be exciting.

The font is quite stylised to fit the bands stylised image. Their name on the poster looks like 2 different fonts which once again adds to their quirky style. The ‘Y’ and ‘A’ are in particularly stylised as they have been joined at the middle to make it a cross sign to show that this is their own style. The background is two different colours and it designed like a light is shining on them. The reason as to why they have designed like this is because this makes the Black Eyed Peas are the superstars and their concert is going to be all about them.
The background of the poster also has a car which matches the main colours in the advert. The car has the stylised font for the name of their band which is also enlarged on the poster and is also on their album which they are promoting.

The packaging is not a usual poster that we see on billboards and magazines. I would assume that they are a contemporary Hip Hop band with conventions of different genres of music. The reason as to why I believe this is because of the way they represent themselves. They carry this attitude which majority of Hip Hop stars have to show that they are the best at their music. The only female singer of the band Fergie especially carries the attitude as she is representing all the women that The Black Eyed Peas give the impression that they are here to introduce a different style of music, which they have successfully done.

The poster does provide a lot of information for their fans. The main information that they have included is the venue and time information. The font has been made very bold as this is very important information f or the concert that they will be performing in. They have also included the musical line up of the concert which will draw more fans in to watch the concert, as well as establish the other bands which were the Pussycat Dolls in their early days. They have also included an image of their newest album at the time. This was a way to promote the album and the fans to really be prepared for their concert. The additional information they have provided is their fan website and the website for the car that they have been sponsored.

The title of the album is called Monkey Business. Monkey Business' has been described as a musical journey, mixing basslines with Latin rhythms, witty rhymes and hip-hop beats. It is the follow-up album to the 4 x platinum selling 2003 release 'Elephunk'. The title album is once again very different as it is not a normal name for an album. Their previous album was called Elephunk which has elephant in the name and this album has monkey in it. This is a good way of grabbing the attention of the fans as it will make them curious as to what kind of songs will be in the album. The album Monkey Business has an image of a cartooned monkey so this would give an impression that this is a fun album with exciting songs. As monkeys are quite crazy animals and this could mean that the band are also crazy.

Analysis Of Magazine Advert

This magazine advert is of an underground grime artist Wretch 32 who is quite popular in the British music scene. The magazine advert is to promote his debut album Wretchrospective (2008). The magazine advert has been designed to really get a sense of who Wretch 32 is. The advert is kind of in animated style as at to the right of the image there is a block of flats which shows a part of London and that is described as his “hood.” The magazine advert definitely has an urban feel to it due to his personal style of Wretch 32. With him wearing baggy jeans, a white t-shirt and he is also holding a chain with a cross on it to keep up this gangster image. The design of magazine advert has really taken a turn on what a typical grime artist would use for their album. The design is particularly nice and use of bright colours really makes the artist stand out. The different shades of blue and also the realistic image of the sky really make the poster look like it has a British theme.
Looking into the advert the whole poster looks like it has been graphitised as there is paint running downwards on the block of flats and down Wretch 32’s neck. This once again refers back to what it would be considered as “hood behaviour” which it seems to me like he is trying to promote.

Wretch 32 is an upcoming artist and seems to keep up this attitude of which most artists have today. He is using an informal approach as he is not looking into the camera; instead he looking away as if to show that he doesn’t really care and feels that he doesn’t need to engage is eye contact with the audience.

The title of the album is Wretchrospective which is quite distinctive as this is not a usual name. A lot of artist these days are using their name or stage name and conjoining is with a bold statement word.
For example the rapper Eve has conjoined her name with a word with her 2002 album “Eve-Olution” which is a combination of Eve and Revolution. Wretch 32 has also emulated this unique style with Wretchrospective with the combination of Wretch 32 and Prospective. This automatically makes the audience think that this album is from Wretch’s prospective and that shows that he has worked hard on this album to make it exactly how he wanted it to go.



Underneath the name of the album he has intentionally made sure that he has trying to get as much recognition as possible. He has collaboration with many underground grime artists as he knows that they are highly poplar and this will make people more interested and willing to buy his album. Most artist do not project what artist they have worked with on the magazine advert but due to that fact that grime music is not known worldwide he needs to work with as many artists as he can. The artist has been put in black boxes as they look like they have been stamped onto the page as a statement to show that this album would be very good. Another thing which also looks like has been stamped onto the page is the information as to when it is out. The font style of this is quite bold and draws attention from the audience.

As this a magazine advert the poster does include most of the things that should be seen in it I would say that this is a good advert to promote this album. It has all the information as to where the single can be bought as it is listed in the corner. It includes his website to find out more information about himself and his music.

The only thing that I believe is missing from this advert is that there are no ratings on it. Usually there are a few newspapers which rate what the album out of 5 and provide a straightforward opinion on the album, this would indefinitely attract more customers to buy the album because if there is opinions on the album already then people will feel like they have not wasted their money. Due to the fact that people are resulting into illegal downloading artists now have to do everything to get the support of the public.

Analysis Of Digipak

This is a very interesting digipak as there is no clear image of the actual artist. This really makes the artist seem more mysterious to the audience and we are unaware of what kind of image they are trying to convey. The artists is really trying to grab the attention of the listeners due to the vivid image of the several different close up shots of a hand terrifyingly drenched in blood. The artist really wants to stand out to audience and make a shocking impact on the audience as this is not a common type of packaging that we see on a digipak. The artist is clearly trying to represent himself in an unpleasant way as this demonstrates evil or pain. The images have been purposely used to make the artist and their album controversially stated.


The colouring has the main theme of red and white which is very simple but still displays distress. The main colour used on the packaging is red which commonly connotes things such as pain, aggression, anger and warning. This colour really stands out on the packaging as the pale white hand really emphasises on the blood to make it look more intimidating. The artist has clearly thought about the packaging because the actual CD is solely in red which automatically refers back to the apparent image of the hand.


The name of the artist or band is Distorture and they seem to have their own unique style and image for their band. As they are a folk band this design and layout is not what you would typically expect from this band. The images and the way it has been laid out shows that this is not a typical digipak. From the really enlarged images and the use of the two different colours really doesn’t reflect the artist style. The digipak and the name of the band really belong to are of a rock band because their main theme is things such as darkness and anger.


The artist has really gone into a different direction as to what type of band they are and how they want to be perceived. From the packaging, images, colour scheme and band name I would assume that the type of band they are is a heavy metal rock band or something of that sort. The name of the band connotes a rock type band as this is a made up word so they are automatically not conforming. Although the genre of the music has been described as “Folk / Ambient / Industrial” music this is definitely not what would be expected of a folk band and things that come to mind are guitars and nature. Distorture had intentionally tried to make their image as distinctive as possible because they didn’t want to conform to the idea of a New Zealand folk band.


The packaging overall lacks a lot of crucial information when it comes to a digipak. It has been laid out to emphasis on the bold images instead of the information on the band. The actual writing is not clear enough and although it is in black it is very basic and not eye catching at all. The font size is pretty small and again very simple. It has been clearly laid out to let the images over power the actual writing content on the digipak.


The title of the album is called Revere. The album title is very interesting as there must have a deep meaning as to why they chose this title. “Revere” is when you have a high opinion on something so I feel that they are a very optimistic band and have been ambitions for their future. The title and image on the front cover are not really linked because the title is very bold whereas the image shows a sense of weakness.


The packaging really grabs the attention of the fans as well as people who are not particularly interested in that type of folk music. As the images are what really intrigues the audience therefore makes the band more recognized. Distorture will appeal to the people who basically like folk music but with an edgy twist. The band are from New Zealand, Wellington so they are not known worldwide but with this unlikely way of the designing a package for a digipak.

Distorture consists of two members which are Jason Just & Kane Davey who founded the band in 2000. The band therefore went on to sign to Symbolique Records where there have released their debut album “Revere”.

Props And Locations

PROPS

-Watch
-Piano
-Necklace
-Mobile Phone
Costume for Lana:
-Long black formal dress (sitting at the piano)
-Jeans
-Jacket
-Shoes

COSTUMES

Costume for Darren:
-Jeans
-Trainers
-Jacket
-Watch

Hair and make-up:
-Hair down (when playing the piano)
-Hair up in messy bun (in the flashback)
-Make-up will be very glamorous and dark(at the piano)

LOCATIONS

We have locations for the video but we have purposely made sure that we have kept them to a minimum.
- A House
- A street (Unaware of street name)
- School Theatre
- Dance Theatre

As we are sure we are going to use the locations above, we still felt the need to have back up just to make sure that we are organised.
- East India Quay (Bridge)

Me and Lana had discussed the different locations and props that we would use in our video. This is the list that we had prepared.

Christina Aguilera - Hurt (Lyrics)

Seems like it was yesterday when I saw your face`

You told me how proud you were but I walked away

If only I knew what I know today

I would hold you in my arms

I would take the pain away

Thank you for all you've done

Forgive all your mistakes

There's nothing I wouldn't do

To hear your voice again

Sometimes I want to call you but I know you won't be there

I'm sorry for blaming you for everything I just couldn't do

And I've hurt myself by hurting you

Some days I feel broke inside but I won't admit

Sometimes I just want to hide 'cause it's you I miss

You know it's so hard to say goodbye when it comes to this

Would you tell me I was wrong?

Would you help me understand?

Are you looking down upon me?

Are you proud of who I am?

There's nothing I wouldn't do

To have just one more chance

To look into your eyes and see you looking back

I'm sorry for blaming you for everything I just couldn't do

And I've hurt myself

If I had just one more day, I would tell you how much that

I've missed you since you've been away

Oh, it's dangerous

It's so out of line to try to turn back time

I'm sorry for blaming you for everything I just couldn't do

And I've hurt myself

By hurting you

Diary/Shooting Schedule

This is my diary and shooting schedule in the form of a table. I felt that I could incorporate both the information of what had happened during the filming day and the complications we had throughout the filming process. This shooting schedule is from both our first music video which was Inna Deja Vu and Christina Aguilera Hurt. As you can see I had carefully thought out what happened and the setting as well as costumes etc.

Target Audeince For My NEW Music Video

Target Audience

The target audience for my music video is mainly aimed at young adults to middle age. The age range specifically I am talking about is 18-30 years. The main reason as to why I had decided on this age group is because the narrative or storyline we have selected is for our video is about the reality of relationships and in this case, a young girl being in love with her boyfriend who had been killed. We wanted to make sure that the audience understand the seriousness of the video and storyline so we felt that an older audience would definitely understand what kind of theme we went for.

I want to make sure that the video fit the genre, as we wanted to display the main conventions of a power ballad. As it is a ballad we wanted to make sure that the video was mainly narrative as this is what you would presume the idea of this kind of video would be. The camera angle and so forth is another way in which we wanted to show that we are sticking to the idea of a narrative based video. I wanted to make sure we used a combination of different shots to really understand the feelings and emotions played throughout the video.

The Decision To Change the song

Myself and Lana have decided to change our video to include the song and the concept. We have made this decision at this moment in time due to the fact that we couldn't grasp the concept of the song. The song is electropop which lacks narrative and is more of a performance-based song and we feel that this song is very challenging. As we know that we have made this decision very late we are making sure that we use our time. We are very organised so we have stuck to our schedule so we can get everything done.

We have contemplated and thoroughly researched a lot of artists and felt that Christina Aguilera's song Hurt would be better.

Emails

I have been exchanging emails with Mr Hitchenson who is in charge of the hall to discuss when the theatre would be available.

Photos Of Locations

As the props and locations are complete I went ahead with the actual video and therefore took some pictures of the locations with the help of Lana.

Props And Locations

PROPS:


- IPod
- Speakers
- Mobile Phone

As this is an electro pop song we wanted to mainly focus on the actual content of the video, particularly the dancing. Therefore we don’t feel the need to include that much props.

COSTUMES:


Lana (Singer)

- Grey Tracksuit bottoms
- Black vest top
- Black trainers
- Leggings
- Sky high heels
- Sunglasses
- Dress


Boys and Girls (Dancers)
· Bright clothing
- Leggings
- Trainers
- Hoodies
- Jeans
- Skirts


LOCATIONS:

We have various locations for the video as we wanted to make sure that the video has an urban look and feel to it.
- Canary Wharf (Fountain)
- A long street (Unaware of street name)
- Sir John McDougall’s Park/Victoria Park
- School Theatre
- Dance Theatre

As we are sure we are going to use the locations above, we still felt the need to have back up just to make sure that we are organised.
- East India Quay (Bridge)

With the approval of Lana I had found looked though all the suitable props and locations.

Research on Genre and Artist

Genre
Déjà Vu" is a Romanian electro pop song released by Bob Taylor, and featuring the female recording artist Inna, in the summer of 2009. Electro pop was first made known in the 1970s to which it wasn’t highly popular. Compared to now where electro pop has now become better known in the 1990s and early 2000s. Electro pop has always appealed to the more European market as its songs consist of catchy hooks and dance beats. The term was used primarily during the 1980s to describe a form of synthpop characterized by an emphasized electronic sound — often described as cold and robotic — and by minimal arrangements.
By the early 1980s there had been a long history of experimental avant-garde electronic music, notably in northern Europe that provided access to a bank of technical expertise built up over decades, via organisations such as the BBC Radio phonic Workshop, and the London Electronic Music Studios. These institutions were patronised by early rock synth pioneers such as Brian Eno, Roxy Music, Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd.

Despite this, electro pop flourished in the United States in black culture, particularly in Detroit. Musicians such as A Number of Names and Cybotron pursued a version of the style inflected by R&B and funk which eventually established the Detroit techno scene. Afrika Bambaata, from New York, also invented the electro style of hip-hop by sampling Kraftwerk.
In recent years, the electro pop sound and style have also arguably influenced many other mainstream pop artists. The second album by British singer Lily Allen released in 2009 called It's Not Me, It's You is largely electro pop.

American singer Katy Perry had a huge hit with "Hot n Cold" which had an electro pop flavour. The British and other media in 2009 ran articles proclaiming a new era of the female electro pop star and indeed 2009 saw a rise in popularity of female electro pop artists. In the Sound of 2009 poll of 130 music experts conducted for the BBC, ten of the top fifteen artists named were of the electro pop genre. Lady Gaga had major commercial success since 2008 with her debut album The Fame. Other Artists especially from the States have commercially enhanced the popularity of electro pop music. Kesha is a young and upcoming artist whose first single Tik Tok was number 1 in America showing that electro pop is still continuing to grow.

Artist

Elena Alexandra Apostoleanu known as “INNA” was born on October 16, 1986 in Mangalia, Romania. She is a Romanian house and dance singer. She began working with Play & Win in 2008 same year when she released the disc single "Hot". At the age of 8 she started taking singing lessons. Inna had a few musical projects but didn't get much attention.
In 2009 at the MTV Romanian Music Awards, Inna won the best dance, best act, best show and border breaker awards making her the most successful singer from the show. Her top singles were "Hot" and "Love".

Inna debuted in 2009 with the album Hot, produced by Play & Win. The main single from the album, the eponymous "Hot", reached top chart positions in Romania, Portugal, Moldova, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Syria, Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Slovakia ,U.S. Greece and Ukraine. The second single promoted from the album, "Love", reached number sixteen in Kiss FM's Fresh Top 40 in its debut week. She was nominated for best singer and best single at the Eska Awards in Poland. Inna also released a single titled "Déjà Vu", in collaboration with Bob Taylor, that was a major hit in Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Russia, The Netherlands and Hungary. Her fourth single from her debut abum was "Amazing", which reached number one in Inna's home country Romania and entered several European charts.

Anamatic Storyboard

This is the anamatic storyboard for the music video (Bob Talyor ft Inna - DeJa Vu). We have included different locations, costumes and so fourth.

Lana had prepared the animatic storyboard for our music video.

Music Video Analysis 2 (Pink - Stupid Girls)

The controversial music video for Pink’s ‘Stupid Girls’ was directed by Dave Meyers in 2006. The song was a big success but was overshadowed by the actual music video which had been downloaded 8.6million times as soon as it was made available on the Internet. Pink, being such a successful and outrageous artist we have seen her star development change on so many occasions, as well as her music genres. The genre for this video was pop which the most popular style of music is. Pink portrays many characters in the video to make a statement about how young girls aspire to the hypersexual personae of female celebrities rather than for their careers or talents. In the beginning we see how a young girl is put into a dilemma of whether as a angel and devil appear who are trying to persuade her to either be who she wants or a ‘stupid girl.’


At the beginning of the video (0:30) pink talks about how girls have lost their ambitions and now are focusing on living the high life. The characters in the video are parodies of young female celebrities such as Mary Kate Olsen (0:35), who provides the basis for the Bohemian-chic dressing style of the girl who visits a Fred Segal clothing store and goes to the pet shop to buy a dog “With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees” this demonstrates the typical ‘stupid girl’ who wears all the designer labels and buys a little dog which is quite popular with young female celebrities of today (Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Britney Spears.)





Pink goes into deeper issues when she talks about health and how a girl with purging disorder who considers calories "so not sexy" makes herself sick. “Oh my god you guys, I totally had more than 300 calories. That was so not sexy, no” Yet Pink makes this into a joke with her costume and blonde hair even the way she was speaking shows how she wanted to show how unserious this issue is.

The visuals have continuously backed the music as Pink had tackled every topic that she had sang to really get the point across about girls who act in an immature like way. The video has been carefully thought out as the pace of the song really flows well with the video. As the video is solely focused on the inter-textual references, the instrumentals are not especially taken into account. At one point in the video the pace slightly increases (1.07) as the song leads back to the second verse we get a recap of the beginning as it is a different shot per second.

As the video is so notorious the record company was planning on to get the song as much recognition as possible with giving it mainstream airplay on all radio stations. This will automatically get the song some acknowledgement before the video was released and will get people to buy the single. Pink has always maintained this image of being quite boyish and tough throughout her career. She has always been an idol to many young people as she has maintained her image and showing that you should be proud of who you are and to not care about what other people think. Even her clothing she has worn has been quite laddish, wearing quite dark colours and make-up. The video is typical of Pink as she is always had this attitude even from the beginning of her career when she was an R’n’B. In her video “So what” really shows Pink’s attitude and the song was positively received. The video really displays the change that Pink had gone from a rock to pop. From the beginning of her career her songs had more of a soul feel to it such as “There you go” to rock “Just like a pill” and the pop like “Stupid girls”.

Looking into the account of Pink’s previous videos, even though there are some explicit seems which do demonstrate sexual references in there which could easily be scrutinized by the media, Pink has cleverly made it into a joking way. The scene with her in the bed as she was being videoed which could be seen as participating in a Celebrity sex tape (2:35) she is simply poking fun at other celebrities participating in such activities. The varieties of shots used in the video have really displayed the fun that Pink would have wanted for the video. There is part where Pink is trying to be seductive when she is washing a car but once again its Pink making it a joke as she slips and falls on the car as well as trying to be sexy and provocative.

The video shows inter-textual references of Pink as an angel and a demon who try to influence the future of a young girl. The angel shows her a series of images demonstrating the stupidity of current trends in female celebrity.

Some of the negatively portrayed characters in the video are parodies of young female celebrities such as redheaded girl who accidentally hits pedestrians with her car is a parody of Lindsay Lohan. This suggests the idea of how negatively young female celebrities are shown in the media, as they are literally on every magazine and on top news for the imprudent behaviour.The scene in which Pink washes a car in a bikini is a parody of similar scenes in the music video for Jessica Simpson's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" (2005) where this once again demonstrates what Pink thinks of young female celebrities and how they are not taking seriously in their careers as the world clearly have an interest in their image and in this case Jessica Simpson’s blonde hair and tight shorts.

Near to the beginning of the video (0:31) Pink is dancing next to a 50 cent impersonator as she is trying to show how woman are not being taken serious in society as well as not taking themselves seriously.

The video is manly concept based as Pink is looking into a strong topic. While the video is parodies of many young female celebrities and is showing how Pink is poking fun at this idea of what a stupid girl is we really get the sense that Pink is conveying a serious message to the wider audience about these issues which are not really taken into account. Pink’s message was clearly stated in the song how she feels about today’s world and the lack of ambition and drive. She feels that everyone should be who they want to be and not what do what everyone is doing.

Shooting Schedule

As I wanted to use the school theatre for our music video I was told that I needed to speak to the performing arts technician (Mr Hitchenson). With permission from Mr Hitchenson I had created a facebook event regarding the details of the music video to allour peers.

Unfortunately due to the mix up of the dates, Lana therefore had to create a new facebook event which stated the correct time date and venue.

Star Image and Development

I have looked at several music artists that have changed their star image throughout their careers and made a huge impact on the music scene today such as Madonna, Elton John and Pink. The image of Christina Aguilera has made a large and controversial impact on today’s music listeners. Christina Aguilera was born on the 18th December 1980 and began her career at a young age as a singer and actor on Disney Channel's television programme the Mickey Mouse Club along Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. She then went signed to RCA records and released her first song for the soundtrack Mulan. In 1999 she released her first album “Christina Aguilera” which went on to sell over 17million records worldwide. She has released 3 other studio albums “Stripped”, “Back to Basics” and “Bionic” after her first album and has sold 42 million records worldwide making her one of the most successful female artists of all time. Some of her most recognized song was Genie in a Bottle, Dirrty and Lady Marmalade. Aguilera has a strong vocal and has managed to work in all different types of music genres from Pop in her younger years (Genie in a Bottle) to R’n’B (Cant Hold Us Down) to Swing Jazz (Candyman) as well as a bit of Rock (Fighter).

As Christina Aguilera began her career at quite a young age she was very much controlled by her music label to keep her innocence and stay out of controversy so as she began her career it was predominantly pop music to appeal to the younger audience from a 13 – 18 year olds as she was portrayed to be a pop icon. Her look was essential and although she began quite young Aguilera always embraced the female body with wearing revealing clothing to make give her that provocative look but managed to maintain that innocence. It is only when Christina gets control of her music and career we really see the female empowerment brought to her music. She uses her sexuality as an advantage to appeal to women; this can be seen in her video “Can Hold Us Down” when there is a female vs. male conflict throughout the video as they battle each other with a dance competiton.

As every teenager does when you are growing up you identify who you really are and what you want to do and we saw that straight away from Christina Aguilera. Her star image made a drastic changed when it got to her second album Stripped where she gained serious media attention from her radical change of music as well as image. She embraced her sexuality and brought forefront that she is now a woman and eliminated that girl next door image all of this is shown in her music video “Dirrty”. She began to wear provocative clothing such as a bikini and chaps as well as wearing heavy make and dark colours in her hair. The way her videos have been edited to constantly showing her female power and sexuality reinforces her image as a star, for example in her 2001 collaboration with Lil Kim, Mya, Pink and Missy Elliot “Lady Marmalade” her characteristics of female dominance we displayed with the constant close up shots of her clothing and hair. The consisted of Christina being assisted by her workers as she once again showing how powerful she is with the tantrums she had throughout the video. This is where we see much more of an edgier side of her. The video was performance based video as it had so much detail put into it with her close up dancing with men as well as women such as the shower scene where it was all women.

Throughout Christina’s career there have shown a lot of close-ups in her videos as it tries to create a relationship with her audience and to make the audience see who she really is, this occurs in her very heartfelt song “Beautiful” as Christina is telling a story to alert the world of the message se was trying to convey. In order to get Christina as recognized as possible promotion was essential in make sure she is a global success. As Aguilera has her own unique style and attitude towards certain things, creating her brand needed to include things such as posters, dolls and clothing that will make her an international success.
Aguilera encourages female domination as she wants to send a particular message to all women which can also been seen in her video “Tilt ya head back” where she is the love interest of Nelly and yet again we get to see Christina using her looks and charisma to make the men weak and infatuated by her. The long shots used were to really emphasis on Christina’s body and beauty, this being another example of female empowerment.
As times have changed and women now have a say in society and being just as powerful as men this is now a reoccurring trend when it comes to female entertainers, especially from Christina Aguilera. She has maintained that same positive attitude that women are a dominant force and should embrace the female body which she has spoken about in her videos especially in “Can’t Hold Us Down”.
Aguilera’s videos have all been a bit of narrative as well as being performance and yet they have the same message about girl power which is very much impressive as she will always continue to change her image and genre of music.
In conclusion to all this, Christina Aguilera is a diva and icon and has been a controversial music artist for a long time. The change in style as well as music genre shows her versatilities. From the very bland music videos that were created for when she was young the contemporary songs and videos have really took its toll on today’s music listeners.

Textual Analysis Of Music Video (Taylor Swift - Love Story)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xg3vE8Ie_E

The video that I will be analysing is a song by a young and upcoming artist Taylor Swift – Love Story. The genre is a mix between two, which is country music, and pop to make it more commercial as country music is not that established. As well as the video being a mix of two genres there is also some broad characteristics that show that it is a country pop video with the scenery as it was filmed in a field along with a horse which also gives the audience a understanding that it is a country video. The lyrics in the video definitely illustrate the visuals as she is mainly talking about forbidden love and being in love with her love interest and sneaking off to see him in the night. “So I sneak out to the garden to see you” at this particular line we see Taylor walk into the garden with a lantern to meet her love interest in a very secretive way. Another point is when she is at the banquet as the video has a Victorian era feel to it and she first glances at her love interest “I see you make your way through the crowd, and say hello” this is when we see a close up shot of Taylor and her love interest Justin Gaston gazing at each other at the dance to show their physical attraction.

The video does incorporate a specific relationship with the visuals as the pace of the video does change when it gets to the bridge of the song. At the bridge of the song Taylor was waiting in her castle for her love interest and as the song builds up and gets faster to head back to the chorus the cuts for that particular part is just continuous. The video has many close-ups of Taylor but they also have many close-ups of her love interest as the video was filmed in a way to focus on the song, most of all. As Taylor Swift is a young and upcoming artist the close-up shots are quite frequent so her audience can feel closer to her and also so they can relate to her. The director and record company have clearly thought about the concept of the video as she has a specific fan base, which are mostly young teenage girls. As she is seen as a role model and her songs relate to young girls they have keep the video innocent yet interesting with her being the artist as well as playing a major role in the video to broaden her fan base. The record company have mainly used promotion to sell this record, which is vital when trying to sell as many records a possible. One example is Taylor Swift performing Love Story on 2009’s UK charity campaign Children In Need to make her more known in other countries apart from the USA. As well as performing she also donated £13,000 to the charity. Also in June 2009, Taylor Swift performed "Thug Story," a parody of "Love Story," with T-Pain for the CMT Music Awards and in October 2009, Swift performed "Love Story" on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The promotion has done for this song therefore made her song a global success. Taylor’s Swifts image is quite commercial but still has her own image. As she is young and very much under control by her record company her image is quite basic with the long blonde hair and blue eyes and not to heavy with the make-up because she is still young and she has to keep her innocence as long as possible. Besides that she does have a country style look with her wearing a big prom style dress with a pair of cowboy boots in one of videos which a show she is a country girl. In Love story they have made sure that there were loads of close ups and mid shot to focus on her because she is the star and her motifs have not really changed over the years.

Taylor Swifts other songs I would say that this is the video with much more of a story to it and less of a performance. Her previous videos still have that country feel to it but not as much compared to love story. Her previous singles “Picture to Burn” and “Our Song” are quite similar to an extent as the do have scenes based in a field and loads of shots of swift with a guitar which definitely identifies to the audience that she is a country singer. Although her style and image has not exceptionally change her video Love story has undeniably demonstrated her maturity because the video along with the song has become more serious.

As Swift has a fan base, which is, addressed to more of a younger audience who do look up to her so therefore the video remains strictly innocence and doesn’t display any inappropriate moments. Her costumes in the video are highly important as they make us, as an audience understand what exactly the theme of the video is and she is wearing a old fashioned Victorian style ball gown which looks like a wedding dress to show that this song is to do with being in love. Due to the costumes and setting and the story of the video we automatically see that there is a intertextual reference to William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s romantic book The Scarlett Letter which she adds reference to in the lyrics to describe a lover whom her father will not let her see. In the end, however, the father reconciles and the lover (Gaston) proposes to the female narrator (Swift). The reference to these plays is demonstrated right from the beginning as she acts out the part of Juliet quite well with the close up shots of the proposal to show the love they have for each other and the intensity within the video.

The video is a narrative and performance based as we can identify this from the very little dancing and more of the story due to the close up shots and mid shots that fill the whole video.