E.g. Vid 7: OK Go - Here It Goes Again

Track: Here It Goes Again
Artist: OK Go
Genre: Alternative
Director: Trish Sie and OK Go
Year Released: 2006

The Here It Goes Again music video is just one continuous take, and shows the band members of OK Go doing a dance routine on eight treadmills. The video was filmed 17 times to get it right.

The dance routine was choreographed by Trish Sie, who is the sister of OK Go front man Damian Kulash. The original video was taken down from YouTube and re-posted, but has in total received around 65 million views to date.

The video was praised for its creativity, winning the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video and the 2006 YouTube Award for Most Creative Video. Because of this the video has been reproduced many times, both by fans and TV shows such as The Simpsons and Big Brother.

E.g. Vid 6: Katy Perry - Wide Awake

Track: Wide Awake
Artist: Katy Perry
Genre: Dance-pop
Director: Tony T. Datis
Year Released: 2012

The music video for Wide Awake begins with the end of the filming for Katy Perry's California Gurls video. Katy Perry goes into her dressing room, which turns into a fantasy world which she walks through and explores, eventually meeting a girl who turns out to be her as a young girl. Her younger self puts something in Katy Perrys hand. She 'wakes up' in her dressing room, opens her hands and a butterfly flies out. She then goes on stage and begins to perform Teenage Dream.

The most prominent aspect of the video is the use of FX. It helps to add to the fantasy theme of the video as there are lots of sparkles and fairy tale style effects.

FX adds a sense of fantasy

There is a lot of intertextual reference to Katy Perry's other songs and videos in this music video. Firstly there is the continuation of the California Gurls video at the start, she punches a prince who shows affection for her which is a reference to Part of Me and she begins to sing Teenage Dream at the end of the video.

Punching the prince is one of the many references to her other songs and videos

The fantasy style is further emphasised through the use of location and mise-en-scene. She enters a labyrinth where there are a lot of flowers, she has purple hair and wears a purple dress.

Mise-en-scene helps to create the mood of the video

The videos visuals relate partly to the lyrics as she sings about wishing she knew what she knows now when she was young, and in the video she meets her younger self.

E.g. Vid 5: Bowling For Soup - 1985

Track: 1985
Artist: Bowling For Soup
Genre: Pop punk
Director: Frank Borin and Ryan Smith
Year Released: 2004

The video combines performance and narrative in the same scenes. The band members of Bowling For Soup feature in the video and after seeing the woman who lives across the road who is still immersed with 1985, go into their garage and play the song dressed as 80s musicians.

Bowling For Soup as Robert Palmer

The video is full of intertextual references which is postmodern. The lyrics mention a lot of 80s bands and films. When playing in the garage they reference Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love, George Michael's Faith and finally Whitesnake. The woman in the video is Tawny Kitaen who used to date the lead singer of Whitesnake and appeared in some of their music videos. When Bowling For Soup are dressed as Whitesnake, Tawny Kitaen gets on the Jaguar as she did in the video Here I Go Again. 

Jaret Reddick as George Michael

Tawny Kitaen could be there for the male gaze. There are several shots of just her body and this is mostly supported at the end of the video when she is on the car. It could be argued though that she is there for the intertextuality so is an important character in the video.

Tawny Kitaen on Jaguar

The visuals are connected to the lyrics a lot through the video. The main theme of the video is the mid 80s, which is also what the song references.

Bowling For Soup as Whitesnake

The location is a quiet neighborhood which is important to the video as the woman is meant to be a traditional housewife. This is supported by the songs lyrics and the toys and kids bikes in her garden which she is tidying up.

The video uses humour which is sometimes used in videos, most commonly in rock and pop punk videos such as in Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters.

Continuity editing is used which is a common convention of music videos. It makes it run more smoothly and allows the narrative to be easily followed.

E.g. Vid 4: Ed Sheeran - You Need Me, I Don't Need You

Track: You Need Me, I Don't Need You
Artist: Ed Sheeran
Genre: Acoustic Hip Hop
Director: Emil Nava
Year Released: 2011

The music video for You Need Me, I Don't Need You focuses on a young male doing the lyrics in sign language which is incorporated with dance. There are also some shots of dancers and Ed Sheeran. It is predominantly narrative with some performance. The whole video is in black and white and there is high contrast, which creates an edgy feel to the video.

There are a few shots where the visuals represent the lyrics, for example when he sings 'I haven’t got a house plus I live on the couch' it shows a sofa in the same location and lighting as with the signing actor.

'Selling CD's from my rucksack aiming for the majors'

The dancing in the video is hip hop dance which suits the genre of the song.

Dancers

The location is a very large studio and there are very little props other than those occasionally shown which match the lyrics. All but one of the characters are male and they are all late teens/young adults. They wear casual, urban clothing.

The editing is quite fast paced which adds excitement to the video. Because of the fast paced editing there are a lot of different shots. The camera zooms in or out on a lot of the shots and some of the takes that are next to each other are very similar which gives a jumpy effect which I think works well.

Emil Nava, the director of the video, has directed music videos for Jessie J, Rita Ora and Paloma Faith as well as Ed Sheeran. Similarities can be seen between this music video and others he has directed, for example Jessie J's Price Tag was also filmed in a large open space.

E.g. Vid 3: Blink 182 - After Midnight

Track: After Midnight
Artist: Blink 182
Genre: Pop Punk
Director: Isaac Rentz
Year Released: 2011

The video for After Midnight has both narrative and performance footage. The narrative is set in a youth psychiatric ward and shows two characters in troubled love who explore the hospital.

The mise-en-scene for both performance and narrative is important to the video. The performance is in a large hangar which suits the pop punk style of Blink 182.

Mini-vid - Rebecca Black 'Friday'

We created a short music video for part of Rebecca Black's Friday. Here is our edit of Friday by Rebecca Black.

Class Vid Idea - I Want to Break Free by Queen

My idea for the class video is to replicate the music video for I Want to Break Free.

In the original video the band members are dressed up as characters from Coronation Street, so we could do an updated version of this. Filmed in somebody's house, we would dress as the characters of today's Coronation Street. This would especially suit Will who enjoys wearing a dress.

At 1:10 in the video Freddie Mercury opens a door which leads to a coal mine. We could do something similar to this but it would lead to somewhere else which would have to be discussed with the rest of the class.