A music video is a short film which is complied with a music track. It's main purpose is to promote and sometimes used to be artistic. There are many different codes and conventions in music videos, some are technical and some are symbolic.
The styles of music videos can be split into three main types. Although these types often blend into each other.
These are:
Abstract: This is a piece which is random and doesn't tell a story, an example of an abstract music video is Can't Stop by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Performance: This is a piece which generally has the artist performing the track or dancing. An example of this is Single Ladies by Beyonce.
Narrative: This is a piece which depicts a story in the music video. An example of this is A Team by Ed Sheeran.
The demand for music videos came from several different factors. The main one was simple and still remains the same even today and that is promotion. In fact the first music videos were called Promos.
Artists wanted more forms of promotion besides having their tracks on the radio and in shops.
It was the Beatles who can be accredited for creating this new form of promotion. They decided to make music videos to accompany their tracks so they could tour their music videos opposed to actually touring, this was so they could have a break from thousands of screaming girls and foucs on the music they were producing in the studio as they became more serious about their music. The first music video they made was for their track called 'Strawberry Fields'. This was the first proper music video the world had seen, the video was extremely abstract, some people argue it seems so abstract because they didn't know what to do for the music video. But you can't blame them as it was the first music video ever.
The A Team is a song by folk artist Ed Sheeran. The single was released in the UK on June 12 2011 and served as the lead single from his studio album '+'. The single was a success and debuted at number 3 in the UK top 40.
The song was written by the artist himself following a last minute performance at an event for the homeless, the song and music video tell the story of a heroin addicted prostitute.
The music video itself follows the narrative of the song. It follows a very naturalistic display of the story. The video is filmed completely in black and white which is a rarity among music videos, although some artists have opted to use this effect such as Jay-Z with his single 99 Problems. The black and white effect gives the video more of an artistic approach.
The director of this video has used a variety of different shots including lots of close ups. The camera work is mostly hand held, to me this gives the idea that the video is done from the point of view that someone is watching the young prostitute.
The target audience for this music video would be fans of Ed Sheeran and the younger population under the age group 16 to 24. The place where the video gained most of its view from is from the website 'youtube' as of 10/10/11 it had received over 12 million views. Another place which the music video will have had airplay is on the various UK music channels.
Katy Perry - The One That Got Away
Directed By - Floria Sigsimondi
The video
was released on November 11, 2011 to accompany the single. In the UK Singles chart it only made it to number 18 although it performed better in the US pop singles chart as it reached number 1. The single is one of 5 which have contributed to a number of records to do with number 1 singles from one album. The director is Floria Sigsimondi, the same director who was used to shoot Katy Perry's previous video E.T.
This music video is mainly in a narrative although there are a few shots which use performance. The shots of performance mainly include a young and old Katy Perry singing together and taking it in turns to sing.
The video begins with Katy Perry as an old woman living
in a modernistic home with her husband. It is implied that the two are now in a loveless marriage as Katy makes herself a cup of
coffee and goes up to her bedroom. Once in her bedroom she begins to to think about the past. As the older Katy Perry sits on her bed, there is a
cut back to a shot of young Katy Perry with her boyfriend, (different to the man depicted as her husband), he appears to be an artist. As the song plays, Katy and her
boyfriend paint portraits of each other, dress up, and dance at a party. The boyfriend also gives her a small tattoo (one which is seen earlier). The scene of the young couple are mixed with shots of an older Katy as she sadly reminiscing as she continues sits on her bed alone. In the
flashback, the younger Katy and her boyfriend get into an argument,
culminating in her splashing red paint on one of his elaborate paintings after
he did the same to one of hers. He leaves angrily and drives away. The younger Katy appears to the older Katy in her bedroom and sits next to her on the bed
as they both sing. The younger Katy is also shown in a closet, crying and
singing. The boyfriend is then seen driving, blowing off steam from the fight.
At the same time, the older Katy is shown driving out of her garage in the
same type of car the boyfriend is driving in the flashback. The boyfriend opens
the sun visor above him while driving and finds the veil of the dress the
younger Katy had worn while partying. As he stares at the veil, it is implied
that he decides to make up with Katy. However, while staring at the veil, he
does not notice that large boulders had fallen onto the road from a small rock
slide. He swerves to avoid the rocks and accidentally drives off a cliff, dying
in the subsequent crash without getting a chance to make up with Katy. The
song ends abruptly as the sounds of the car violently rolling are heard (the
actual crash occurs off-screen and is simply implied.) The older Katy is then revealed to have
driven to the spot where her past lover had died, while Johnny Cash's cover of You Are My Sunshine
plays quietly in the background. She walks up to the edge of the cliff and
leans against a fence until her boyfriend's ghost, wearing Katy's clothes,
appears before her on the other side of the fence. The two hold hands,
revealing matching tattoos on their hands. Older Katy then comes back to
reality, and the Johnny Cash stops suddenly and the ghost of the boyfriend disappears. Katy then turns back and walks away from the cliff as the screen fades to
black.
The first shot is a long shot which shows the futuristic house which Katy now lives in, it also gives the audience a presumed idea of what year it may possibly be.
This shot is a medium shot, it shows an older Katy Perry which confirms to the audience that the timing of this part of the video is from the future. The shot shows an unhappy Katy who is stuck in her loveless marriage, note that this shot is just before the music starts. It then moves onto a medium close up which further shows her unhappiness.
Special effects are used in the music video to produce a shot which features both the old and young version of Katy Perry, a split screen effect is used here as both of the people featured in the shot are played by Katy Perry.
With some of the shots of a young Katy Perry and her boyfriend a handicam is clearly used, this gives it more of nostalgic feel as if the older Katy is really looking back at these memories.
The editing pace is average and the speed goes with the beat of the song. Jump cuts are used when going from the past to the present/future, these are used effectively to show the older Katy Perry is coming back to reality.
Generally the music video was well received by critics and the public, to date it has reached 102,171,012 hits on youtube. It has also since been made into a Sims 3 music video to accompany a new release of the game.
