MUSIC VIDEO NARRATIVE

 

At the start of the music video we will be in school trying to have fun as we are young female teenagers who are in school and extremely bored. In order to show this we are going to have shots of our heads down with books open looking really sleepy and tired because we're bored. 
We then want to show a group of students leaving the school and they all look happy because school is finally over. Then a group of girls are running out of school and showing that they are happy. The start of our video fits with Todorov's theory as it shows a state of equlibreium where everything is normal and in a clam state. It is then shown that they decide to go out shopping in places like Camden Lock, and shopping centres like Oxford Street and Westfield.
Whilst they're at the shopping centres they will be trying on new clothing and coming in out of the changing rooms in the shops. It shows a transition to where things were in a state of normalcy to them going around shopping and having fun which defies the sterotypes of a female group of friends because stereotypically they are meant to not get along, which can be seen in typical high school movies, which conform to the convention of groups of friends that are thought to not typically get along. 
They will then make their way out of the shopping centres with a lot of shopping bags in their hands and their facial expressions will show that they're having a lot of fun and enjoying their time together. After that they make their way to McDonalds to eat. This is because it is supposed to show the audience that they enjoy eating in places, and as a teenager myself I would  definitely go places like there to eat. This is when the narrative refers to Todorov's theory as this is the part of recognition where they realise they cant spend their time shopping because they have to go to school and they have to worry about what they are doing.
The last location will end on the girls back to school sitting in the classroom which they were in at the start at the start of the video. This is supposed to show that they cant run away from school and they are left with no choice but to face reality. Moreover the locations which we have chosen throughout the whole video are all effective because the target audience will recognise them straight away and every time they see a new one, it makes them more curious about the next. This grabs their attention and keeps them interested throughout the video.
The video ends in a circle, as a loop as it shows that being in school is whats normal and what they need to do.

TODORIV THEORY & GENRE AND CONVENTIONS

TODOROV THEORY:


In our music video we use Todorov's theory in which our music video is constructed with our narrative.

1. Equilibrium: Our music video starts with a group of female teenagers in school looking bored and tired with their school work. There are close up shots of all the girls showing their facial expression so the audience have a clear understanding of how the girls feel. This fits with Todorov's theory of equilibrium of everything being as it should be be. For example students are stereotyped to always be tired and bored of school work so this fits in with the equal balance of powers. Everything is as it should be these group of teenagers are in school, learning even if they are bored.

2. Disequilibrium: A disruption of the order that things should be in happens. For instance the next part in our music video is that suddenly all the girls start packing up their things and start to leave school. There would be a long shot to show the girls are in a classroom and then showing the audience that the girls are packing up and planning to leave the school. Their then would be a birds-eye view shot from above the school of the girls all leaving the school. This is the disruption in the narrative where the main characters are placed outside their normal social framework.

Our music video doesn't follow an exact step by step of Todorov's theory but key points of his theory. For example in,

3. Recognition: the characters don't realize that they can't spend their whole time shopping and enjoying times with their friends so instead they are seen leaving the shopping centre with bags and laughing and enjoying being with each other. This would be shot in a long shot showing the girls leaving the shopping centre with bags and making their way to a place to eat.
4. Reparation: As there is no recognition in the disorder that has occurred in the video there is no actual transformation shown, where there is a clear indication of reparation as there is no identification to the characters that a disturbance has occurred in their usual state of balance, that occurs in their everyday life. So instead they are shown to just carry on enjoying their day out together.
5. New equilibrium: The end of the music video displays a unexpectedness to the audience as the characters end up making their way back to school showing that the new equilibrium is similar to the equilibrium at the start however at this point the characters come to their own sort of recognition that they can't spend their lives in shopping center's and eating and hanging out, but in fact that they have to actually go to school and can't run away from their school lives no matter how much they want to and do actually have to concentrate on school.
Our narrative is driven by attempting to try and get the audience to understand that the characters understand that they have to go back to school and that also the narrative involves a transformation of the characters themselves understanding that they have to be grown up and face the stress of their exams and school work head on and not run away from it, so there is also a display of the characters transformation through the situation and disruption.


GENRE AND CONVENTIONS:


The genre we have chosen is pop because we feel that we are close in age with a lot of our target audience and as we are girls we understand the appeal teenage girls have towards the pop genre.
We followed through the conventions of the pop genre as we have artists in a lot of fashionable and stylish clothes. The characters in our music video wear a lot of casual clothes but stylish at the same time because we wanted to portray them as quite girly as the song we have chosen, 22 by Taylor Swift, the main lead is very femineine in the video and we wanted to portray that through the clothing.
Another convention is that we wanted to portray the characters as happy and enjying themselves and life in the video. We did this by starting the video with the girls packing up their things loooking bored with their life, but when they go out and hang out with their friends, they look content with their lives.
A lot of pop genre is nowadays associated with having teens in clubs and partying and alot of the imagery is based on sex or partying as this is what is stereoypically what society assumes teens do these days. We however did not follow through with these conventions and instead kept it more girly and less grungy.
We did not have the characters in excessive make up even though this this said to express the artists feelings we instead kept it minimal because we felt that they are still teens and we wanted it to be more about them feeling content and enjoying themsleves in the music video because we felt this was the best way for the characters to express themselves and that is what the wole song is about, having fun.
We wanted to create a loud and lively atmosphere yet simple like it was years ago because these are still young girls, just having fun and enjoying themsleves. They are not worrying about school.
We end the video with them going back to school because we wanted to show that reality hits in and that they can't always just be having fun all the time.

TARGET AUDIENCE & SONG DECISION REASONING

TARGET AUDIENCE:

For our music video we have chosen females between the age of 14-18 as our target audience. This is because the female teenagers within that age range are usually at school and doing exams and we want to reflect this in our music video as it is based on teenagers who supposed to be not worrying about school work and ''forgetting deadlines''. Therefore when the audience are watching the video they will understand what female teenagers are like as it will include: shopping, going out, going to cinemas. Furthermore I am the same with in the same age range as the target audience we have similar hobbies, likes and dislikes, therefore are video will appeal to them.

SONG DECISION:


The song we have chosen is Taylor Swift 22. We have chosen this song because it’s a popular song by a female pop/country artist that many people admire.  In addition the song is very catchy and upbeat therefore the target audience will feel more attracted to it. In addition to that the main theme is ‘’forgetting deadlines’’ and school work, therefore this will make it more appealing to the target audience because young people in general like to have fun and go out all time.

Furthermore when you’re a teenager you don’t just want to be working at school or revising all the time because it is hard to concentrate on things like as they don’t know what the adult life is really like. Therefore our target audience is the perfect range because when your 14, its like the start of your teenage life and when your 18 it kind of the end of your teenage life and you will begin to see the adult world. However the message we are also trying to get across to the target audeince is, as much as they love going out and having fun, they have face reality and that's why at the end of the video we have chosen to make them go back to school.

LOCATION, CUSTOME & PROPS

Location of Music Video

The location at the start of our music video is in school and its supposed to show the audience that teenagers are tired and not really not that bothered with school. this then leads onto when the school bell rings and the students rush out of school like they're really desperate to leave - this is also supposed to show the audience that what they feel about school on a day to day basis. Then when the chorus of the song comes in the group of teenagers get on a bus making their way to a shopping centre and that will be in Westfield. They all be trying on different clothes and they walk out of the shops with many shopping bags. The location is a popular shopping centre therefore it's supposed to show that's teenagers enjoy it and that's where they would go for shopping. In addition it also shows that they're all happy and enjoying their time together. After they leave the shopping centre they go to eat in McDonalds. This is because it matches to what our target audience as that location is somewhere which teenagers would go to eat. You wouldn't exactly find then in coffee shops and I know this because I'm a female teenager and I would usually go there to eat with my friends. Finally the last location will be the girls making there way back to school and this is effective because they cant run away from school and their education, they will just have to face reality.

Costumes
The types of clothing we will use is casual clothing as our music video is for teenage girls and in the video these girls are out and about having fun with their friends, so we didnt want to have them dressed up so much because we didnt want them to look older than they are and we wanted them to be young girls out enjoying themsleves. The style of these characters is casual, and quite girly. Because our target audience is towards female teenagerw we will have them dressed this way as it will be more appealing to them. It will be appealing to them because it will draw them in as they will like girly outfits and casual clothing. Ideologically girls are supposed to like bright colours and girly, casual clothes so our target audience will be attracted to the fact that they are of similar age to the character's and how their likes are similar.

Props
In our music video our characters willl use props such as mobile phones, because they are teenagers and it is believed that teenagers spend a lot of their times on their phones which is true so the character willl be talking on the phone and texting showing that they are in contact with their friends and that they are sociable with their friends.
We will also use props such as shopping bags to show the characters shopping and to show what teenage girls like spending their time doing on a day to day basis. Girls are often associated with being 'shopaholics' and since our video is about girls hanging out together, having fun we wanted to show that shopping is a big thing that girls like to do so we had the characters go out in our music video to a big shopping centre, try on some clothes and leave with shopping bags showing them going out and enjoying their time with each other.

CAMERA ANGLE SHOTS EXAMPLES

DATA ANALYSIS

1. How old are you?

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2. What is your gender?

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3. Who is your favourite music artist?

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4. What type of genre do you prefer? (circle one)

POP INDIE ROCK RAP COUNTRY OTHER SPECIFY………………………

5. Where do you find your music from? E.g. Radio, Internet, etc.

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6. What is your favourite colour?

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7. What type of magazines do you read?

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8. Where do you listen to your music on? E.g. Internet, youtube, iTunes etc.

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9. How often do you listen to music?

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10. Are you more interested in the music video or the song? Why?

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11. Who is you favourite female music artist?

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12. Who is your favourite male music artist?

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13. Who is your favourite band or group?

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14. Do you like seeing the artist in the music video?

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15. Do you think pop is a genre for both boys and girls?
Yes or No

Questionnaire Data Analysis

20 people filled in our questionnaire and this is our analysis of the answers we received and why this research benefits us and our music video.

Question 1: How old are you?

The majority of the answers were that the audience was aged at fifteen and a few at sixteen which benefits us as our target audience is an age between 14-18 which means that our video will appeal to people within the same age range.

Question 2: What is your gender?

The majority of the people who answered our questionnaire were females; female: 11, Male: 9 and this very important to us as our music video is targeted at teenage girls so it is important to understand what they like and their preferences so we can apply that to our music video which will then make it enjoyable to watch.

Question 3: Who is your favourite music artist?

A lot of the boys preferred rappers and male artists however a few of the girls liked male artists as well such as Chris Brown and Justin Timberlake which could link to their music preference as both artists are big in the pop industry which is important for our video as it tells us that our target audience who are females, like a lot of pop music but also they like the singes to be around their age and to be big artists that are well known. Similarly the preferred female artists were people such as Jessie J and Katy Perry who are also very big and well known in the industry and make music that appeals to their fan base and their audience who are of a similar age to them.

Question 4: What type of genre do you prefer?

The majority of males answered saying that they liked rap music the most and the majority of females said they liked pop the most. The other genre that females said they like as well was indie/rock/ country and a one of the males said they liked rock music as well. This is beneficial and useful as, as our video is targeted at females mostly and as we are doing a pop song it’s important that we know that a lot of females are into pop rather that rap and rock.

Question 5: Where do you find your music from? (More than one answer)

The majority of the audience stated that they find their music on the internet and mostly on YouTube while only a few said that they find out new music through friends or radios or TV.

Question 6: What is your favourite colour?

A lot of the female audience said that they like colours such as white or red which are colours that we would then use in our video showing that these types of light, feminine colours attract our target audience. Most of the males answered that they prefer colours that are dark such as black or blue however many of the girls also said that they liked the colour blue which again we would consider using in our video as it’s something that attracts and draws in our target audience.

Question 7: What types of magazines do you buy?

The majority of people who answered this question were females and said that they read magazines such as ‘OK magazine’ and ‘We Love Pop’. The few females who do read magazines only read them about celebrities and some about music, in We Love Pop magazine. This is important as this shows that if we were to advertise the video were we would do it or where we would show it such as the We Love Pop website and also whether or not in would be good to advertise in magazines and such things.

Question 8: Where do you listen to music on? (More than one answer)

The most popular answer was that people listen to their music on the internet and on YouTube. This is important because we know now that our target audience likes to listen and find their music on the internet which would be the best to advertise and show and our video on, as it is so popular and were our target audience find and listen to their music on.

Question 9: How often do you listen to listen to music?

The most popular answer on this question was that the audience listens to music everyday and some only sometimes. This isn’t necessarily important to how to make our video appeal to our target audience, however it shows that songs have to be catchy and nice to listen to if they are going to be played nearly every day.

Question 10: Are you more interested in the music video or the song?

The majority of the audience said that they prefer the song rather than the video as the lyrics can sometimes mean more than the video and can easier to be more easy to relate to as they can interpret the song as they wish to. However the lesser few who said that they enjoy the music video more said they preferred the video more as they get to enjoy a more visual side of the song and get a sense of what the artist wished to happen in the song and also what the artist wanted to be narrated through the song. This is beneficial to us as we can make our video appeal to our target audience by making a video which they wish they can see an interpretation of what we believed the artist to show and using their own ideas of what they thought the song to be about and making a video which our target audience would enjoy very much.

Question 11: Who is your favourite female artist?

This also shows us that a lot of artists that the audience like are a lot of artists who are big in the pop industry.

Question 12: Who is your favourite male artist?

Similarly to question 11 a lot of the artists that the audience liked are artists who are of a young age and close to the age range of the audience and also artists who are famous and big in the pop industry.

Question 13: Who is your favourite band or group?

A lot of the answers to this question was that they preferred bands rather than groups as bands play their own instruments and are better at live entertainment which means that having a lot of people or a ‘live show’ sort of atmosphere in the music video may appeal to our target audience as most of the girls stated that they liked bands rather than groups.

Question 14: Do you like seeing the artist in the music video?

Question 15: Do you think pop is a genre for both boys and girls?

The majority answer on this question was no. This is important as considering our target audience is widely female that both females and males think that pop should be considered more for females and not males which is beneficial as our music video is for a pop song and if it was something like a rock song it wouldn’t appeal to our target audience










 

RESEARCH