Music video narrative and performance pitch

Narrative
The video opens with a girl lead on her bed in her dressing gown on a laptop, she picks up her phone and theres an over the shoulder shot of the message she has just recieved, it cuts back to the long shot of her lead on the bed and it is obvious that she clicks play on her laptop and this is when the song begins. There are several shots of her face. Then the video cuts to several long shots which change rapily of the girl in different outfits which fits the lyrics 'You change your mind, like a girl changes clothes.'

Performance
There is now a shot of the girl sat on her bed singing, the video then cuts between several shots of the girl on the bed, a series of long shots, extreme close ups, close ups and midshots. It is clear by her facial expressions that shes fed up and slighly annoyed by the situation. We cut to a close up of the artist on stage singing the chorus, she is dressed in a black dress and looks comfortable on stage. The video cuts between long shots, mid shots, close ups and extreme close ups of the girl on stage peforming. The video cuts back to the girl on the bed and she sings a short part then cuts back to her on stage.

Narrative
There is a long shot of the girl opening her wardrobe, we then cut to a matching action shot of her opening a door into her back garden. She looks confused, goes back through the door then comes out again in a different outfit, and looks pleased with herself. The video then cuts to a midshot of the girl in the outfit that she just changed into sat on a bench with another girl playing slapping games. Both girls look very happy go lucky, laughing.

Performance
Same shot of the girls sat on the bench. This time the friend is sat looking bored. The artist is sat next to her also looking bored and annoyed, but singing into the camera. The girl also sings to the friend next to her, the friend will not notice her singing, she is very still as if frozen. There is then a close up of the girl singing into the camera. Back to the midshot of the two girls on the bench, this time the artist is sat on the back of the bench singing at the friend, the artist looks very angry and appears to be shouting at the friend.

Narrative
There is another shot of the two girls on the bench, they are mirroring each others body language, and both look annoyed and fed up.

Performance
There is a midshot of the girl now sat outside of her house in a different outfit, she is still singing to the camera. This time she looks as if she is waiting for someone. The video cuts between a selection of shots such as longshot, mid shot and close ups of the girl sat outside of the house during this verse.

Narrative
There is a shot from behind the girl of her looking up and down the road, to see if anyones coming. There is a then a shot above her head, again showing her looking around for anybody.

Performance
There a few more shots of the girl singing into the camera outside of a house.

Narrative
There is an over the shoulder shot of the friend walking towards the girl, there are more shots showing the girl waving at the friend but being ignored. There is then a mid shot of the girl looking upset that she has been ignored by her friend.

Performance
For the bridge of the song, we chose a shot of the girl singing into a hair brush looking into her mirror and singing into the camera. There will be a shot of her from the side singing, and then cutting between that and an over the shoulder shot so her reflection is visible in the mirror of her singing. Both of these shots are close ups. We then cut back to the shot of the girl performing on stage, this shot will be a close up to match the shots just taken in the mirror. The video will then cut between all of the previous shots used in each locaion.

Narrative
Several of the shots on the bench, where the girl and the friend are not talking will be in amongst that of the performance shots during the end chorus. Once the song has ended, the video will cut back to the girls on the bench laughing at hugging.

Artistic inspiration

As the ancillary task for this project is to create an album cover, inlays, and a poster, I looked for inspiration for my artwork. Most album covers from our genre have plain background, generally black or white. I wanted to try and keep with this convention, however wanted to look at other covers that challenged it slightly. Looking at Ellie Gouldings single cover for Starry eyed, there is still a quite plain background used but this time using a dark blue with a few stars. I like this idea and wish to use it in my ancillary task later. However unlike Ellie Gouldings cover, I would like to use brightly coloured lettering similar to Katy Perrys teenage dream album cover.

Music video inspiration

After deciding on the initial ideas for the narrative and performance of our music video, we looked at other media texts that already exist to give us some more inspiration and ideas about the codes and conventions of our genre and how to challenge them.

Ellie Goulding - Starry eyed

This video is good inspiration for the performance element of our music video. There is no narrative, which will not be the case for ours. There are only about 5 different shot locations, we intend to limit our shot locations to a small number like this. The shots used are all of Ellie Goulding in a static position singing into the camera, they are mostly mid shots and close ups and a few long shots and cut between all of these quite raidly. We want to recreate these types of shots in our own music video and also try and create our video to be as fast paced as Ellie Goulding's. Ellie Goulding is singing through out all of these performance shots. We are going to have our artist sing through out the majority of our video even during some of the narrative as is in keeping with our genre. The video starts in one location for the first verse and changes to another in the first chorus. By the end of the video the shots are cutting between each location. We would like to use this technique in our video to tie up all the locations together.

Kelly Clarkson - My life would suck without you

In this video I mainly focused on the narrative. The narrative in this video shows a traditional romantic reltionship with difficulities. The narrative only appears during the verses of the song, which we would like to happen in our video. The artist who is a female in this video is represented as the more dominant one, which goes against traditional representation. Although we will not be creating a romantic relationship between a man and a woman, but a friendship between two females we would like to portray the artist as the dominant character. I looked slightly at the performance shots in this video, Kelly Clarkson is on a stage performing but no audience is visible, we think that this is a good idea, as it gives the impression that the viewer of the video is the audience of the on stage performance.

Initial video ideas

With our music video we want to try and recreate the emotions that the lyric's imply. With a serious upset emotion, angry and also revengeful and then happy. However, instead of using the theme of a romantic relationship, we have decided to do a friendship, the break down and the formation of a new friendship, we have chosen to do this because of the environment we have available to us, a school. The video will take place in natural settings, similar to Lily Allen's video for the fear. We have decided on a all female cast because of the female artist singing. We want to main focus to be our leading female character/'artist', who will be played by the same person for performance and for narrative. We will try and use different shots to create an interesting video to watch. The performance will take place in the settings of the narrative, but will also take place on a stage.

Hot 'n' Cold - Lyrical Analysis

These are the lyrics for the song we are using, Hot 'n' Cold by Katy Perry. The song is basically, a girl singing about how her love interest can't make his mind up about how he feels about her. One moment he's all over her and the next he's gone off of her, and this frustrates her. The lyrics give off an angry and annoyed vibe, this is a big contrast to the overall 'pop' light hearted feel to the song. The video is playful but still slows the lyrical aggravation quite well. As a result we will keep our video quite excitable with a dark narrative.

You change your mind
Like a girl changes clothes
Yeah you, PMS
Like a bitch
I would know

And you over think
Always speak
Cryptically

I should know
That you're no good for me

Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up
(you) You don't really want to stay, no
(but you) But you don't really want to go-o
You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down

We used to be
Just like twins
So in sync
The same energy
Now's a dead battery
Used to laugh bout nothing
Now you're plain boring

I should know that
You're not gonna change

Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up
(you) You don't really want to stay, no
(but you) But you don't really want to go-o
You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down

Someone call the doctor
Got a case of a love bi-polar
Stuck on a roller coaster
Can't get off this ride

You change your mind
Like a girl changes clothes

Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up
You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up
(you) You don't really want to stay, no
(but you) But you don't really want to go-o
You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down, down...

Poster Analysis

I also looked at the posters that advertised the tour promoting the relevant albums for Lily Allen and Lady Gaga.

This is Lily Allen's poster for her tour 'Lily Allen with Natalie Portman's shaved head' where she performed the album 'It's not me, it's you' Similarly to the album cover the background is plain but this time it's white. There is a close up shot of Lily Allen's face but this has been animated and make completely pink, which matches the colour of the font on the rest of the poster, and also matches the theme of the album cover, however the image is completely different to that of the album cover. The writing is very minimal and just says the name of the tour, the date and the venue. This is simple and effective because it's to the point.


Lady Gaga's poster also has a white background with black font and with Lady Gaga wearing the same black outfit as on the album. Once again the information on the poster is straight to the point, the artist's name, the date and the venue. With one small difference to Lily Allen's poster, there is an advertisement for her album. The Photograph of lady Gaga is on the right the same as the picture of Lily Allen on her poster. However this time the whole body of Lady Gaga can be seen. The photograph is different to any on the album, but is in the same style.