Textual analysis of music videos
Music video 1 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr0Wv5DJhuk
The first video which I will be anaylysing is 7 things by Miley Cyrus, the director of this video is in fact Brett Ratner. There are many ways in which the lyrics link to the visuals within this video, this tends to exaggerate the words that are being said much more, this song has no contradictions between the lyrics and the visuals and simply shows exactly what is being said. There are a few specific examples of this in which I can pull out of the video e.g. "but sometimes I get so scared" - The girls in the video while this is being said are pulling a scared looking facial expression and grab onto their teddys which they hold in their hands. At one point in the video Miley grabs the necklace she has round her neck and kisses it, this quite obviously shows that the song is about a previous lover which she has now lost and are going their seperate ways, the lyrics also communicate this to the audience. There is also another point in the video where the lyrics strongly relate to the visuals, "you make me love you" - A girl in the video has a teddy bear in her hands with the word "love" written across it, she then drops it as these words are being sung. "If you text it I'll delete it" - One of the girls in the video is holding a phone, deleting a message. Throughout the song is negative with Miley singing about the 7 things she hates about her ex, and the video is very negative, the visuals are of all of the girls crying and being upset, whereas when Miley starts singing about the 7 things she likes about her ex, the girls start smiling and becoming happier.
There is a strong relationship between the music and the visuals in this video, the song starts off quite low and the beat isn't very fast and the song in itself is rather quiet, this visuals link into this as everyone in the video is calm and aren't moving much, just tapping their feet to the beat etc. Although when the beat and music starts picking up at "The 7 things I hate about you" everyone in the background starts getting into the music and dancing and becoming more into everything that is going on, the same can also be said for the pace of the music along with the visuals, when the pace fastens up, so do the visuals and the people in the video.
I believe the record company are looking to sell this track with attracting a younger audience. Although they have stripped the image of "Hannah Montana" in which Miley plays in the Disney Channel series, they are still keeping her innocence and personality, just without the costume and blonde hair, they understand and realise that children will still love Miley whether shes Hannah or not. They show Mileys innocence through using other normal teenage girls in the video holding teddy bears and crying because they have lost something they wanted to hold onto. The song is a simple representation of how teenagers percieve relationships and break-ups. They have also shown Miley wearing the necklace that her ex boyfriend Nick Jonas brought her, many children will realise this and they have seen this as an attempt to publicly show the fact that Miley was hurt through this break-up, this is in fact a story in itself. There are many close-ups of Miley throughout this video, in fact, throughout the whole video it's pretty much her face on screen with a few background band players and the girls that come on throughout the videos, this shows that Miley is the main part of the video and gives her importatance and draws in the audiences attention. Before this video, Miley had never made a song or a video as just Miley, it'd just been as Hannah Montana! so this video was very important in showing the audience that she now wants to show a new side to her and show a more mature side to her, although still keeping the same target audience plus also a slightly older audience included. So their were no videos made before this that were in any way the same as this video. There are some videos that were made after 7 things which do link to the "7 things" video such as "Fly on the wall" Miley is showing a more harsh side to her in this video although still keeping the same image and keeping the spot light on Miley, this all represents a huge change of image.
As the artist is trying to keep an innocent and child-like look in this video there are no ways at all that the artists or any of the people in the video are being put on sexual display, the idea of the video is for young children to idolise Miley. The whole video is based around showing that altough Miley is this massive huge star that everyone adores, she still has feelings and still gets hurt just like every other child/teenager. All of the props and costumes that are used are very child-like and would target a very young audience and these things would appeal to children e.g. teddy bears, phones, colourfull outfits, a white rose (again showing innocence) and so on. The necklace within the peice is hugely significant and represents the video all together. It shows that although Miley has all this money, a small necklace means more to her then any of that.
Like I said previously, Miley has totally stripped her Hannah Montana image in this video, although still shows the same, quirky Hannah just without the costume or blonde hair. It seperates her from her TV show massively and has created a new person within the video and shows that Miley can be more than just Hannah, and can still be successfull without Hannah.
I would say that the video is narrative-based, as throughout they are telling us Mileys story and why she is singing this song. The video is actually based on her real life heartbreak and as an audience we can get the idea that she is hurt within the video, they want us to know the story and what has happened.
To conclude discussing this video I have gathered a lot of evidence which shows what this video is about and what its main idea is and what it would like to put across to us as an audience. The genre of the song is pop-rock. This video was mainly created to show Miley without Hannah and to show how successfull she can be without her. The idea was to create a sense of innocence without taking it too far, and also to target a wider audience. As Miley children and teens may be interested whereas as just Hannah she would only attract young children.

Music Video 2 -
My life would suck without you - Kelly Clarkson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHjERzdSXpg
My next video I will be analysing is Kelly Clarkson - My life would suck without you, directed by Wayne Isham. Once again the genre of this music is pop/rock, and this genre mainly targets teenage girls. The video starts off with Kelly Clarkson as an adult swinging on a swing, then it has a flash back of her and a boy when she was a young girl, maybe at the age of 8-9ish, she pushes the boy over as they're fighting, and then he gets up and they make up. This immediatly tells us she is singing about someone she has known for a very long time since she was really young. It then shows Kelly as a child and shows her wrist, she has a bracelet on then she sings "Guess this means your sorry, your standing at my door" then the video goes forward in time and it shows Kelly as an adult opening a door to a man, and it has a close up of her wrist in which she is still wearing the bracelet she had on as a child, indicating it was given to her by the boy she is singing about. The lyrics hugely contradict what she is saying in her song "because we belong together now" - While she is singing this, they are fighting in her video, although by the end of the chorus they make up again. There is another point in the song where it flashes back to where her and the boy are young and they are sitting near each other on a seat although ignoring and looking away from each other, it then goes forward in time where they are in the same situation sitting apart ignoring each other and the lyrics in the background say "my life would suck without you". The video basically shows two people that are not stop at each others throats although they can't seem to let go of each other and actually enjoy fighting as long as it's just with each other and nobody else.
The music very much relates to what is going on with the video. The pace of the music matches to the pace of whats going on in the video. "Being with you is so disfunctional, I really shouldn't miss you, but I can't let you go" at this point the music slows down rapidly, and things that are going on in the video are very calm and the camera slows down as it is tracking sideways, then the pace picks up at "Because we belong together yeah..." and the two of them start fighting again and everything fastens up.
There are a huge amount of close-ups of Kelly Clarkson and shots of just her on her own. I believe the record company are looking to sell this track by keeping Kelly Clarksons image of a strong independant woman who loves what she does and the genre of music she sings, they know that Kelly Clarkson is already very popular and they do not need to change her image in any way. They show her as a rock star, somebody that many girls would look up to and want to be like, and thats what they're trying to do within this video. This video very much reminds me of her video "Never again" where at certain points she is singing on her own with a band in the background, then every now and then it will show shots of the story she is telling. The pace of the video and the music is very simular too, where at the slow bits the pace of the video slows down and vise versa. If you look at all of Kelly Clarksons videos from when she first came out, they are all very simular and her image has barely changed throughout the years.
I do not believe that the artist is being put on sexual display what so ever, as the clothes she is wearing cover her up and there are flash backs of when she was a child. Once again, the song is targeted at teens, so there wouldn't be any sexual references within this video. It is showing innocence in a different way to the Miley Cyrus video I analysed earlier. It's showing although Kelly Clarkson is very harsh in the way she sings and the genre she is, she has the child within her.
The music video is both very performance and narrative based. The reason it's very narrative based is because it shows a lot of when Kelly was a child and shows parts of her life through a story. The reason it is very performance based is because it has plenty of parts where Kelly is alone in the video and doing her own thing, performing with a band. It's very much of both parts.
I have come to a conclusion that this video is very much the same as most of Kellys other videos, it shows that she is happy with her image and feels no need to change herself or the music she sings or the image shes putting across in any way. It shows much confidence within herself. It also tells us a story and one which could relate to many people and thats how they are attracting an audience.

Music video 3 - Foo fighters - learn to fly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BieVgyrfglQ
The video I am analysing this time is Foo Fighters - Learn to fly. The genre the music belongs to is rock.


CD cover analysis 1
CD cover analysis 2
CD cover analysis 3

Track idea 1
Track idea 2
Track idea 3


How a stars image develops over time through music video.
The star I will be analysing is Geri Halliwell. I chose this artist because I believe her image has changed enourmously over time going from a group to singing as a solo artist. Geri Halliwell was born in the 6th of August 1972, she is an English pop singer. She first became famous in 1996 as a member of the girl group "Spice Girls" As a solo artist she has released four number 1 singles in the UK. Geri Halliwell doesn't have a varied genre that she usually works in, it is pretty much just pop music.
As I said, Geri Halliwell first got her name in fame by being in the group "The Spice Girls", she was very young when she became famous, in her early 20's. Her image has changed rapidly since then. The spice girls had names that they went by in the group, Geri's being "Ginger Spice" along with the other group members whose names were "scary spice", "posh spice", "Sporty spice" and "baby spice", this, along with many other aspects attracted them to a very young audience, mainly children and young teens, Originally Geri was going to be named "Sexy Spice" but as they were targeting a very young audience they changed it. She also wore a very outragous outfit which made her known across many countries, she wore the union jack dress, this gave her an individual identity and people would recognise her just through seeing the dress she wore. The songs they sung were also very childish such as "Spice up your life" and "Stop" etc. Shortly after the spice girls ended, Geri launched her solo career in 1999 with the song schizophonic. This was the start of a more serious Geri, a more grown up Geri, in which she wanted to also target a wider audience and an older more serious audience, this showed that she was very serious about her music career at this point, and her videos at this point showed that too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJLIiF15wjQ
Geri in her first video came across as very young and friend orientated, you could see that The Spice Girls didn't look as serious about their music careers as most more grown up bands may be. The outfits they wore and the lyrics they sung shows this more than anything else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rm075a7J9w
In the video "Lift me up" you can quite clearly see her image had changed rapidly from the video above of her in the spice girls, she had coloured her hair, lost weight, and got rid of the union jack dress. Geri is shown performing in a lot of the Spice girls videos, combining all of her talents, singing, acting and dancing, whereas in her most recent videos where she has become a solo artist she is purely just singing, and her whole video is based around the song. This basically says that she knows she is famous now and people know who she is, so she doesn't need all of the props and costumes to make her liked, as she already is.
You can see the million attempts in all of the spice girl videos that they do to make themselfs known and recogniseable as stars, to create a vivid star image, although Geri on her own not as "Ginger Spice" has a totally different star image, a more serious star image is being put across.
I believe the star was such a big success overall because "The Spice Girls" came around in the 90's which was when girl/boy bands were very popular, especially amoungst teens. They were young and fresh and children/teens could feel a connection to The spice girls, to some of their songs which tend to have some meaning to them e.g. "Mama" and "Goodbye", I believe Geri Halliwell was not such a great success as a solo artist as she no longer had her star image to fall back on, she stopped with the high stalletos and the union jack dress and created a more sophisticated Geri in her videos, which I don't believe the audience enjoyed as much as they did when Geri was "Ginger Spice".
To sum up my essay I will finish by saying that Geri's image has changed massively over the years, more so then any of the other spice girls! She has changed her immaturity into real maturity and you can see this as the years pass in her videos.


Nirvana -

Media Essay

Media, Magazine Coursework. Essay.

My media product “I-Rock” uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products because although I have kept the forms and conventions of an every day magazine I have also tried to make mine slightly different and more exciting. First off I have got a brand new band on the cover as my main image, to sell the band and magazine, it also immediately shows something new and exciting. I have tried to include many aspects of real magazines that you see on the market today, although I have tried to make my magazine slightly different, a little original, I believe that would make my magazine different to any other and there is a gap in the market for a magazine like mine. My magazine includes the price, date and issue number on the cover, which is exactly what any other ordinary magazine has and needs, yet I have I have done my masthead, cover lines, primary images and secondary images in my own style and in my point of view in how I would like the audience to perceive the band in my image. I looked at many magazines before the project; I examined the cover, contents and advertisements within certain music magazines, this was to see how the represented themselves depending on who their target audience were. I looked at the connotations behind the images to see how they used lighting, props, make-up, actors, set and costume to get their point across. Obviously the advertisements related to the actual magazine and their target audience and how they wanted to put themselves across. The first thing I noticed in “Metal Hammer” was the “Grand Theft Auto” game advertised on the front page, immediately that tells me that the magazine was targeted at people over the age of 18, as the game is labelled an 18. I believe my magazine relates to other magazines as I have tried to keep my magazine simple yet putting a subtle point across.

My media product targets teenagers around the age of 14-19, there is no particular nationality or background that I am targeting it is a just purely teenage girl. In doing this I believe it would bring something very different to the magazines which are in the stores now, as the genre of music I have gone for is Independent/Rock music, and if you look at magazines that cater for this type of music such as “NME” and “Kerrang” they look as though they are mainly targeted at boys. The vibe that my magazine gives off is a “Never give up” attitude, and my magazine represents teenagers all across the world who believe that they can make their dream come true and they will never give up until they achieve their goals. My point is to make bands/groups/artists that are not so well known and are less mainstream to become more popular and more noticed to the public eye.
You can quite easily see by just looking at the main image on the cover of my magazine that the group I have starred on the front cover “Organized Chaos” are just usual, easy going, every day teenagers who received a lucky break but are still just having fun and influencing other teenagers just like them to carry on working as hard as they possibly can to get to their level of achievement today. I am totally inspired by musicians who build up their musical career by themselves without going on pop reality TV shows, so I made it quite clear that this magazine was for bands who wanted to make what they want happen by working as hard as they can by themselves and one day to hopefully be noticed. This magazine is for people from all different backgrounds and for people who want to know what the music industry is really like, and how amazing yet hard it can be, by realising the harsh reality's of it all and by realising this, are inspired by the people included in my magazine for becoming who they are today. I have made it serious yet fun, showing that you can work hard and benefit from it and get a lot of fun out of doing it. My magazine targets teenage girls around the age of 14-19. There is no particular nationality or background I am targeting. I expect my magazine to bring something different to the market, as the genre of music I have gone for is individual/rock, and if you look at other magazines that use this genre of music you will see that they’re mainly targeting boys because of the colour schemes/language/pictures etc. My magazine represents teenagers all across the country that believe they can achieve their goals, my main point is to make bands/artists that are not so well known, more noticed and popular. As I am inspired by musicians that build up their musical career by themselves without going on pop reality TV shows such as “X-factor” I thought I would make this known, and for teenagers to believe they can make it on their own as long as they put the work in.

If my magazine was to become massive and it was to be advertised on certain radio stations/television channels/other magazines and so on, I would like it to be put on radio stations such as “XFM” and “Virgin”. The music channels I would like my magazine to be advertised on are “Kerrang”, “Q”, “Scuzz” and “NME”. The reason I would like my magazine to be advertised in all of these is because the music I am promoting is the same genre as the music these certain publications promote. I believe these specific publications would represent my product in the way I would want it to be represented. The music many of these radio stations/Television channels play has a lot of meaning behind the lyrics a lot of the time. It is powerful, and that's how I want my magazine to be looked at. So I would like a big institution because they could fund and would give me the support to produce my magazine and while it was building itself up.

I attracted my audience by firstly making the front cover stand out. The three main colours I used on my front page were red, white and black. I used red for the background which you don't see much of because the main image covers it up quite a lot as it is spread across the whole page, but the masthead is placed in front of the red background and it stands out very clearly and boldly as it is in huge, black, bold lettering, next to it is a skull which is also in black which is rather large, these are just little things that are seen as soon as you look at my magazine. The actors in my main image are wearing white tops, so they stand out amongst the red. I have used exclamation marks and many quotes on my front cover to give the cover lines importance and to make it look as though it must be read. I thought through the main image quite carefully, and it took me many attempts to get my image perfect. I thought about the make-up, costume, lighting, set, facial expression and body language of my actors, because I knew that all of those small elements put together would be the key to making my magazine stand out the most. I finally come up with how I wanted my actors positioned, after many attempts I came to the conclusion that I wanted a medium-long shot image where Joe, my main actor was standing in the middle of the two girls reaching out to the audience, I felt as though this would make the reader feel more involved. The two girls were standing beside him leaning against him. I used dark eye make up for each of the actors to fit in with the cover of my magazine. I addressed my audience in a positive way, I used certain techniques which would make them want to read on, I asked them questions that didn't need to be answered yet needed to be thought about to make them feel a part of everything. I did an editors say, where I gave the audience a small on-site on what they should expect to be in this issue and the next issue of “I-Rock”. The language I used wasn't formal nor informal, it wasn't slang language but there were no over-complex words included as I realised the magazine was for teenagers and most teenagers just want to relax and feel as though after a hard day at school/college/university they can relax and go into a world of their own. If you look at other magazine using the genre of music I am using, you will see that the language, colour schemes etc mainly target boys, so my USP is a rock/indie girl’s magazine.

I have learnt many things about technologies from the process of constructing this product. Before I began the process of making my magazine I would have never of known how to make a magazine cover using fireworks, although I did find using that software surprisingly easy, and it came naturally to me, after my practice run, I felt as though I could now do anything. This all changed when I started to make my final magazine cover, as I wanted everything to be absolutely perfect. The hardest part was making the image look right, it was very fiddly to cut around the image and make the edges look smooth and not to look photo edited. The part I found easiest was the text, putting the text around the image was quite obviously the simplest part of the process, however getting the correct font for my magazine wasn't, it probably took near on hours for me to decide which font suited my magazine best, as most of the time it looked boring or out of place. I found publisher very difficult to use, it took me a lot of time to get the titles on my contents page and double page spread, but once I got into the swing of using the programme it became much easier. I believe if I had planned my magazine out more by writing all of the contents down and making a brief plan of how I wanted my magazine to look, I would have found using the programmes a lot easier to come to terms with. The part of the task I found easiest to make was the cover, this is probably because I have had previous experiences using fireworks before, so it made it much less effort to learn how to use it. Another thing I found very difficult was transferring the title of my double page spread from the “da-font” website, to fireworks, to publisher, as I couldn't get the colours of the background to match, but after a while of trying to get it to much, I got it right. Overall, the programmes were very hard to work, but in the end I got there and it was worth the time I put into it.

Looking back at the whole task and thinking back to what I knew then compared to now, I have learnt so many new skills about how to make a magazine, what you need to include and the software needed. I've also learnt to take control of my time more wisely, as my first draft didn't take me very long to do I thought the real thing would be a breeze, although I was completely wrong, there are so many aspects that need to be covered and thought through. Creating my draft compared to the real thing was completely different. Once I had completed my draft I thought that I was basically finished, but then I handed it in to my teacher and I realised actually it was nowhere near done and to improve it to the best standard it could get too I would have to put in a lot of hard work. I had to re-take the pictures because the lighting wasn't flattering, and it wasn't thought through well enough at the beginning, I had to consider the colours of my product and how I wanted to express them, and so much more. The contents page was a lot harder to do in the real thing then it was in the draft, I had to space out my writing a bit better and include more images as it looked a bit plain and boring, there was nothing special about it. The double page spread I had to improve by checking through my language, after checking through it and making a few minor changes I asked my friends if they would want to read an article like this to see if it was suitable for teenagers our age, and eventually they all agreed after they had told me to make a few more changes, so I'm pretty confident the interview is to the best standard it can be at. Overall I have learnt huge amounts in such a short space of time, at the beginning I didn't realise all of the detail that you had to put into making a magazine, after the first few stages, and getting the general idea of exactly how you want to present your magazine, there is still so much more to do.