Video Analysis

Lady Gaga - Poker Face
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bESGLojNYSo&ob=av2e

This song is an up tempo dance song with a simple but interesting music video. This video is like a mini film with several different concepts, the first being her coming out of a swimming pool with two Great Danes laying by the pool. The video then cuts between her dancing with male back up dancers, her on her own outside of a large house and her at a party either playing poker or sitting with a large group of people. It is easy to tell when the video changes from one scene to the next as her costume varies in each scenario, suggesting her interest in fashion.
This video has almost 40 million views emphasising her mass appeal to most music fans.

Lady Gaga - Just Dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Abk1jAONjw&ob=av3e

This song is an upbeat dance song. The video starts with Lady Gagaarriving at a house party  when someone starts playing the song prompting people at a party , who had all previously been asleep, to start dancing.  The video cuts between shots of the people dancing and Lady Gaga either singing the song, or dancing. Nearer the end of the video it also cuts to shots of her in a paddling pool with an inflatable killer whale.
Lady Gaga's outfit changes depending on what shot it is. When she is singing she is wearing a glittering silver dress and when she is dancing at the party she is wearing a black and white striped poncho whith a blue lightning bolt below her right eye to pay tribute to David Bowie.

Target Audience of Artist/Band

The target audience for Rihannais quite varied due to the unique and individual sound of her music. Generally however, her fan base tends to younger people either in their teens, 20's or 30's who have a love of dance, R'n'B and  pop music. Her fashion also attracts a lot of younger people who copy her dress sense and hair styles.
In terms of demographics, Rihanna's fans are largely female but with collaborations with artists such as Eminem and Jay-Z her music is also more appealing  to a male audience.

Psycographically, her fans are quite varied. She is likely to attract a large number of Mainstreamers due to the mainstream pop sound in her music and the large fan base she has created. She would also attract strivers who want to fit in and seek approval and social status because so many people listen to her music. Reformers, aspires and explorers are also likely to listen to her music.

In socio economic groups, Rihanna's fan base is quite diverse as her music is listened to by many people regardless of their job, income and social status. However, the likely groups to listen to her music are skilled manual workers e.g. electricians and plumbers semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers and casual labourers.

Rihanna has featured on many magazine front covers, not just confined to music magazines. She has appeared of several fashion magazine covers including Glamour and You. This shows that she is not only a music icon but a fashion icon as well.
Her unique sense of fashion and hair styles makes her stand out suggesting that alot of people, regardless of their age and job are interested in her, not only because of her music but because of what she wears.

Rihanna has appeared on many different types of music magazines, ranging for rock and indie magazines such as NME to chart music magazines like Billboard. Again, this proves that her target audience is wide and

When looking at Rihanna's facebook page, it is clear that her fans are both male and female and range in age and nationality. She also has a following of nearly 30 million people, showing the large interest in her and her music. Again, this is clear on her twitter page as she has over 4 million followers all ranging in age and nationality. Her followers on these websites are an equal mixture of male and female fans.

Permission

This is my email written to Def JamRecords asking their permission for copyright of Rihanna's song "California King Bed". It is important to gain copyright permission for songs because it stops other musicians and bands from stealing each others songs.

Song Choice

The song my group have chosen to make a music video for is 'California King Bed' by Rihanna off her album Loud. We decided to use this song because it had strong and meaningful lyrics that would allow us to come up with a love story narrative for our music video.
When looking and some of the lyrics, we were immediately able to visualise how certain shots would look.

Link to lyrics:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/california-king-lyrics-rihanna.html

Exploring Music Video

Madonna -Vogue
Vogue is set entirely in black and white to recreate the 'Golden Age of Hollywood'. By setting the film in black and white it also helps to add sophistication and style to the video. The name also helps to suggest style for the video as Vogue is also a well known fashion magazine. Throughout the video, people are striking poses that could feature on the front cover of Vogue magazine helping to create a sense of fashion and elegance. They are wearing smart suits and fancy dresses to suggest that they are uppercase, rich people (the main target audience for Vogue magazine). The people in the video have vacant expression again reinstating their high class and carefree attitude.
As Madonna joins some of the extras they are all wearing black suits as they begin to dance. The dance is slow and almost robotic, emphasising their carefree attitude.
This music video is likely to appeal to a slightly older audience who are into fashion and the golden age of Hollywood. However, it may also appeal to younger people who aspire to have glamorous life styles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJQSAiODqI

Christina Aguilera - Beautiful
This video focuses on issues and stereotypes of young people focusing on the negativity they often face. The video features people not normally featured in music videos, rather than using 'beautiful' people that others would find attractive Christian Aguilera decided to use people that are often over looked or ignored. Featured in the video are, an underweight girl looking in the mirror, a thin boy lifting weights with photos of bodybuilders on his bedroom wall and another girl ripping out pages of a woman's magazine. The video also shows a girl being bullied and a goth sitting down on a bus as other passengers move away. This deals with some of peoples predetermined thoughts on certain types of people as well as teenagers own worries with their bodies and appearance. Throughout Christian Aguilera is standing alone in a room singing the song, suggesting how alone and isolated these people feel because of how insecure they are. This video also challenges the idea of the perfect person who features on magazine front covers as it creates worries among young people that they aren't normal and they don't look right.
This video would appeal to most young people as it carries a message that it doesn't matter what you look like and may help them in feeling more confident about themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZjr0heZNIw&ob=av2n

Beyonce - Single Ladies
This video is set in black and white, the the Vogue music video, again being used to show style and sophistication. The video features Beyonce dancing with two backup dancers who look similar to her. They are all wearing high heels and black leotards - Beyonce's being slightly different so she stands out. The choreography of the dancing is complex and fast paced to match the tempo of the song. It also emphasises her skills as a dancer.
This video would appeal to younger people, especially girls, who want to be dancers and enjoy upbeat dance songs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyHVQT8aIBM&ob+av3e

Eminem - Stan
The video for Stan features a cameo from Dido as she sings the chorus of the song. Eminem however, features very little in the video as someone else plays the character of Stan. When he does appear he is sitting on a tour bus either reading or writing a letter, there is also footage of him performing a concert, leaving a concert and singing autographs.
The theme of the video is Stan's obsession with Eminem, the basement set is covered in Eminem posters, with another one of his videos playing on a T.V.  During the third verse Stan is driving in his car and drives over a bridge, to emphasise to the viewers how obsessed Stan is. Throughout the video it is dark and raining to create an eerie atmosphere and to hint to the viewer that something isn't right.
The video makes a clear point that all musicians has obsessive fans and that they can't always reply to fan mail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSLZFdqwh7E&ob=av2e

Intorduction

For my media coursework I will be working in a group with two other people to make a music video. We will have to film and edit footage to make a video for our chosen song. In oreder for the vidoe to be successful we will have to work together in making decisions on camera shots and angles, locations and mise-en-scene.
This coursework will allow me to further develop the skills I learnt from my AS task (making a front cover, contents page and double page spread for a music magazine). For this task I had to consider font types for the title, sub title and main text as well as costumes, lighting and settings for the photos. This will help me when deciding what should be included in the music video.
Link to my AS Media blog:
http://sianpomeroy3.blogspot.com/