For my textual analysis I have done James Morrison's You Give me Something. I chose this song because it has a male lead singer and is a poppy kind of song like ours.
The narrative of the video is of two all female groups auditioning for some unknown part. The Judge comes and picks up an overturned chair to sit on, she then unwraps a lollipop. The auditions start as the young looking group of girls, who seem to be dressed in a sort of school PE outfit, start skipping with two ropes. They are interrupted not long into their routine by the other group. The other group seem slightly older that the skippers as they are focussed much more on sex appeal. They are showgirls doing a large glamorous routine with feathery fans. Their routine finishes and as they sit down, the Judge looks around, undecided as to which group she favours for the part.
Each auditioning group get an equal time performing their routines, although it does not seem that the skipping girls are finished as they are interrupted by the showgirls. In fact almost all of the shots from either side of the room are mirrored from the other side. Often we got shots of the Judge, with her lollipop, looking around at either the performances or the reactions that the other group have, to their opposition.
The video is fifty percent narrative based and 50 percent performance, even though the whole video takes place inside one large room and everything happens in the time that it takes to recite the song. James Morrison, the song's artist, is performing the song in front of a white curtain, opposite from the Judge. The reason that the video is not based just around him is that he is a fairly average looking person. Instead he is shown singing the song and playing the guitar, focussing on the fact that he is a talented musician.
Some references to the notion of looking are when the songs music is at its loudest and there is orchestra instruments, as this happens a light brightens behind the white curtain that he is sat in front of. This shows us the silhouettes of the people playing the trumpets and cellos and other various orchestral instruments behind the curtain. Another reference is when the skipping girls get up to do their audition, one of them takes gum out of her mouth and sticks it to her chair, later when she comes back to her chair she picks it off the chair again and puts it back in her mouth. To me this says that the skipping girls are not too big time and this could be their first audition, whereas the showgirls all have matching outfits and wigs and fans, which suggests that they are fairly big time and they are much more confident about this auditions that the skipping girls, being the underdogs.
Intertextual references would be any films to do with auditioning, especially in a creative way such as this, like Flashdance.
