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Music video Questionnaire

Male/female


What is your favourite music video of all time?


What are your favourite music genres? (All that apply)
Rock
Pop
Dance
Metal
Rap / hip hop
R ‘n’ B
Indie
Other (Please specify)

Do you often watch music videos? (At least every few days)
Yes
No

How do watch them? (All that apply)
On Youtube
On music channels
On an ipod/iphone
On itunes
On a games console
Other (Please specify)

What do you like to see in a music video? (All that apply)
Dance routine
Performance of the song (singing and playing instruments)
Narrative
Humour
Sadness
Thought provoking images/narrative etc.
A more surreal concept. More abstract ideas
Fashion
Bright colours
Close ups, lots of camera movement
Other (please specify)

We have come to a conclusion that we are going to put both performance and narrative in our video. In all three of the videos we analysed both of these elements were used.

We are currently in the process of writing a questionnaire to find out what people would prefer to see in a music video and ones that they like themselves. This will give us an idea of how to structure our own video.

Cobra Starship

For my textual analysis I have chosen a song which includes a male vocalist, I think this links in very well with our chosen artist because the main singer from peter and the wolf is a male singer.

Cobra Starship – Good Girls Go Bad

The main genre of the band that I have chosen to do is Alternative Dance,
Alternative rock, Synthpop, Pop punk, you can tell this from the style of the video, the artists themselves and the characters in the music video, they are dressed stylishly and would appeal to the younger generation.

The lyrics in this video have been well represented in the music video. The band are singing about making “Good Girls Go Bad” suggesting that they are wanting to mislead girls into doing something bad which is not their normal ways hence “making good girls go bad”. This is enforced during the video showing girls doing “bad” things such as drinking, partying and gambling. The guys in the band getting arrested for misleading the “good girls”, the main girls in the video are actually the police.

The relationship between the music and the visuals is quite good because the band and the performers in the video are in a disco and the music that is accompanying the video is dance/electronic.

During this video there are a lot of close-ups of the main singer, Gabe Saporta, they are focusing up on the upper half of his body and his face. One of the items that you see in most of the videos are Gabe’s Ray Ban glasses.

There is quite a lot of reference to the notion of looking, looking at the girls in the music video,foucsing on the top half of their bodies, the girls are dressed in short skirts, high heels, low tops. Also there is a lot of use of mobile phones in this video.

This video is mostly narrative, there is no performance from the band. Its all about narrative.

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.

Lyrics, Peter and The Wolf - Coming of Age

(We couldn't find the lyrics on the internet as our band is not very well known. So we had to write them by hand!)

You can take the horse from the water

but you wont stop it drinking

You can be the king of the castle

but you wont stop it crumbling

Darling I know

you're coming of age

You're willing to die

was already safe

You're out of control

you're hiding your face

With nothing to lose

You're coming of age

You pick up the pieces

do they feel familiar

Take a look around if you're missing some

and make up a picture

Darling I know

You're coming of age

You're willing to die

was already safe

You're out of control

You're hiding your face

with nothing to lose

You're coming of age

Crawling through a window of an open door

Was it worth the risk what you were looking for

Running through the middle of a holy war

This time,

This time

Crawling through a window of an open door

Was it worth the risk what you were looking for

Running through the middle of a holy war

This time,

This time

This time

This time

You can take the horse from the water

but you wont stop it drinking

You can be the king of the castle

but you wont stop it crumbling

Darling I know

you're coming of age

You're willing to die

was already safe

You're out of control

you're hiding your face

With nothing to lose

You're coming of age

Crawling through a window of an open door

Was it worth the risk what you were looking for

Running through the middle of a holy war

This time,

This time

This time

This time

This time

This time

This time

This time

This time

This time

As my own video i chose a song in which the main vocalist is a male, i did this as our song has a male lead singer so i thought it would relate a little more.

The Maine - Into Your Arms.

The genre of this song is mainly Alternative but slightly Pop. An example of this is that both of the main characters are both good looking and fashionable.

There is quite a good relationship between the lyrics and visuals. The Lead singer sings about him being in love. The girl is the focus of the video giving the audience the idea he is singing about her. Also he claims that he needs to find his way "back to the start". All throughout the video the girl is going backwards...as if towards the start. This is emphasised by the amount of camera movement, although they are in a static place the movements tell the story.

There is also a good relationship between the music and the visuals. The musicians are playing their instruments around the airport where the narrative is set.

There are a lot of close ups of the artist mainly on his face and upper half of his body. I feel that they have done this to show off the tattoo that he has on his chest.

Reference to the notion of looking. There are lots of windows in this, with the view of outside the airport. There are lots of close ups of him and his top half, and the girls body, her legs and face seem to be the main focus point with her eyes and lips also being pointed out.

Intertextuality. Coldplay's video of The Scientist goes backwards, just as this one does. There is also an element of Romantic Comedies with the chance meeting of the two main characters at the end of the video yet the start of the narrative.

This video is mainly narrative but is also slightly performance aswell.

Today in class, we looked at textual analysis. We watched Geri Haliwell - It's raining men as an example. Now we are looking at our own videos to analyse.