Taylor Swift

 

Taylor Swift's third album which received positive reviews from music critics. The album debuted number one on the 'US Billboard 2000 Chart' selling approximately 1,047,000 units in its first week, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_Now). The album was also an international success, charting within the top 10 in several countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom. Swift promoted the album with a worldwide tour throughout 2011 with a total of 80 shows. Critics praised the tour saying the two-hour production Swift put on was an 'overwhelming experience'. The Korean Focus Times praised it by saying, “Taylor Swift charms Korea in style, radiant...with pitch-perfect and sincere vocals. The dedication of the fans present was boundless, the cheers of the crowd were sometimes louder than the music itself.” Her fans loved the album, 'her songs are really good on this album', 'strong vocals, amazing lyrics, amazing songs!', these were some of the comments on the amazon website when fans purchased her album. http://www.amazon.com/Speak-Now-Taylor-Swift/dp/B003WTE886.



Taylor Swift 'Speak Now Tour'

Taylor is a seven time grammy award winner.

Her second album 'Fearless' won 'Album of the Year'

 and 'Best Country Album'. Swift's song 'White Horse' won

'Best Female Country Vocal Performance' and 'Best Country Song'.

 Her 2012 song 'Mean' won 'Best Country Solo Performance' and

 'Best Country Song'. Taylor's 2013 song 'Safe and Sound' which featured

grammy winning duo 'The Civil Wars', which was written and

featured on the movie 'The Hunger Games' won

 'Best Song Written for Visual Media'.

Taylor Swift during her 2013 tour for her new album 'Red'.



Taylor with many of her fans.

Intertextuality between two texts

Intertextuality means  the relationship between texts: the relationship that exists between different texts, especially literary texts, or the reference in one text to others.














Mean girls- Mean Girls is a comedic drama about the age of fifteen who finally goes to a public school after being home schooled for her whole life. At school she learns of the 'plastics' a group of vicious, most feared, popular 'cliques' of the school. The film is about a group of girls who try to undermine each other, being bitchy towards each other and trying to fit in with the stereotypical society in which they live. We are attempting to challenge those stereotypes of girls in schools always trying to one up each other and instead want to show a strong bond between these girls in the video. We want to show that not all girls hate each other and are fake towards each other. We want the audience to understand that these girls in the music video are very good friends, that they enjoy each others company and they wouldn't want to ever jeopardize their friendship. This would appeal to our target audience because our target audience would be of similar age range to them and they go about doing activities that normal teenage girls would do with their friends and we want our target audience to understand that because this a girly, fun, upbeat song that these girls in the video are similar to them, and as teenage girls value friendship we want them to understand just how important it is.
As we are teenagers we understand that there are times when teenagers fall out, especially girls, so in our music video we want to show the strong bond between friends and that friends are important and this will let the target audience know that friends are important, which is important because our target audience are females who enjoy being with friends and spending time with them.

 

 

 

 

Intertexuality between texts

Intertextuality is having a relationship between texts.


Tulisa - Young

This music video includes a group of friends hanging out and just doing typical teenage activities. The scene which Tulisa is running into an apartment with her friends having pillow fight, jumping on the beds suggests that they are having fun and not worrying about anything. We want to reflect that in our music video because we feel that the society now with in female teenagers is like this, and as a teenager I enjoy hanging out with my friends and having a lot of fun with them. Therefore out target audience will enjoy our music video they will feel attracted to it straight away. In addition the scene which appeals to our target audience the most is when Tulisa in her apartment putting on nail vanish with her girls. This is because it is showing their girly side because before they were with a few other boys. Therefore again we want to reflect this in our music video because it will be very appealing to our target audience. From this music video we have learnt that it links very much to our music video and he are going to use a similar concept is our music video is about female teenagers, and the society they live in. For example, in our music video we are going to have a group of girls shopping and trying on different types of clothes.  







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP_eI5T_deU

 

 

Mood Board

In my mood board I have chosen to use props which are really girly like, make-up and dresses. I have also chosen to include casual outfits that they will usually wear and common things they would do, like going shopping. This reflects back to out audience who are females with in the ages of 15-18 who are like ‘girly-girls'. Therefore this is appealing to them and they will immediately feel interested in our music videos as we using these props.  In addition this society stereotypes females which are that age as ‘girly-girls’ in magazines, music videos. It is also stereotyped in T.V dramas like Mean Girls and Pretty Little Liars.

Examples of Camera angle shots

Examples of long shots, close-up, birds-eye view which will be used in our music video.

Artist Biography

Taylor Swift Biography

Born 13th December 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift spent most of her childhood on a farm.

At age 12 Taylor was shown how to play 3 chords on the guitar by a repairman which then inspired her to write her first song. At age 14 she moved with her family to Nashville as part of her fathers job transfer. While in Nashville she secured a deal at RCA Records. When she turned 15 she left RCA because she felt she was ready to release an album using her own material whereas RCA wanted her to record music written by other songwriters and wait until she turned 18 to release her own music. At an industry showcase at Nashville's The Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Taylor caught the eye of Scott Borchetta, a Dreamworks record executive who was in the process of creating his own record label, Big Machine Records and Taylor was Scott's first signings. 

Swift is also a multi-grammy award-winning singer/songwriter who in 2010 became the youngest artist to win the grammy award for 'Album of the Year' at the age of 20. In 2011 Swift was named Billboard's Woman of the Year.

Swift is a role model to a lot of young teenage girls and inspires a lot of them. She is popular among many groups of females and many of her fans feel inspired by her. Her fans are a lot of the younger generation and that's why we wanted our target audience to be the younger female generation because not only are we young females ourselves but also because we wanted our video to fit with the conventions of a pop music video and we felt that we understood that particular audience a lot.

A lot of her fans feel as though she is an inspiration and as though they can connect to her through her music and because she writes songs that they feel are easily relate able because of their lyrics, http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110421095054AAfZYRW

She is also very successful and accomplished very much in her short lifetime, and she teaches other young people that they can be like her and achieve many things like she has if they keep believing in their dreams.

Her music is enjoyed a lot by young females who can easily find themselves relating to her, maybe because of who she is or her music.

T.V SHOWS THAT LINK TO OUR MUSIC VIDEO

IMAGES OF T.V DRAMAS THAT RELATE TO OUR MUSIC VIDEO


PRETTY LITTLE LIARS:

 

 

 

GOSSIP GIRL:

90210: 

These T.V dramas link to our music video because they are based on 'girly girls' and they portray the stereotype of what girls are like in  this society. Therefore these T.V will have a similar target audience to ours and we want to reflect that in our music video.

Song decision and Reasoning

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. Also the song is very catchy and it appeals to young girls as its about ‘’forgetting deadlines’’ and school work. The song is fun and upbeat and as target audience are young females it would appeal to them a lot. In addition teenagers in general like to have fun all the time and go out

Furthermore when you’re a teenager you don’t just want to be working at school or revising all the time because it 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

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.

 

 

Music Video Theory- 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.

Sugar Paper Research

Genre and Conventions

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.

Music video narrative

Music Video Narrative

 

The start of our music video will have a group female teenagers showing that they are tired of school work and they do this by closing their books, putting away anything that has to do with school out of their site. After that they will make their way to 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. 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 I will definitely go there to eat. 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.

 

Research

Costumes and Props

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mood Board

Mood Board

In my mood board I have picked out a lot of pop artists because my target audience is female, teenagers and these artists like Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Katy Perry are all a variety of artists who are big in the same genre, pop. They represent my target audience who are ‘girly girls’ who are stereotyped to like things that are very girly such as magazines and shopping and clothes. All the female artists in my mood board appeals  to my target audience as they are young themselves and are what females aged 14-18 are supposed to be like in the maximum of society. They are appealing to my target audience and their music videos are also consist of things that would appeal to a female teenage society.

Research

Target Audience Profile

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.........etc. 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.
 

 

Naughty Boy ft Sam Smith: La, la, la Analysis

LA, LA, LA - NAUGHTY BOY ft. SAM SMITH

This music video has a narrative through out the whole video and the story is in chronological order so that the audience could understand what the video is about. Also the story is told on the main character who is a young and what he does when he is in a difficult situation. The video starts off with a man who is shouting at a young boy who is probably his son and as he shouting at him the boy starts to cover his ears and then the chorus of the song starts ‘’la, la, la’’. This shows the audience that the young boy cannot cope with the with the man shouting because he does run away. This makes the audience feel sympathy for the boy. The director does this to show the audience that when you’re in a situation which you cannot cope in and you’re under a lot of pressure the best thing to do is simply walk away from it.

Furthermore as the young carries on his journey he comes across a few troubled people who are in a situation which they clearly do not enjoy. For example when he sees the man playing music for women in a gym the young boy encourages him to cover his ears and walk away, and then the chorus ‘’la, la, la’’ come on again. This is effective because it shows the audience that the point that the director is trying to get across is that when you’re in a situation which you do not want to be in you can simply walk away and cover your ears so you don’t have to listen it. The video is very successful because the director has made the story clear and its easy to understand, and also the audience were not only entertained by the song and lyrics the video was a significant feature of making this video successful.

The Script Man Who Can't Be Moved Video Analysis

The Script-The Man Who Can’t Be Moved

At the start of the song the main vocalist, Danny O’Donoghue is walking along a pathway were he then stops at a street corner. At this particular moment the lyrics are ‘going back to the corner, where I first saw you’ are heard which shows a combination of both narrative and performance where the vocalist begins to mime the lyrics to the song which shows a good example of the relationship between the lyrics of the song and the visuals happening on the screen.

The Script is an alternative rock/pop band, and the song features lyrics that we would typically expect from such a band. This song is particularly telling us a story about a couple who have split up and now the man is waiting for his ex-girlfriend to come back to him and he doesn’t want to move on until she does to.

The main man’s image in the video is of casual appearance as no vehicle or anything of higher status to show the audience that he is of little power due to him walking around on his own looking a bit lost. Because the storyline is of such and the atmosphere is busy we expect to see areas of members of the public being featured with cuts of the band performing together, which we do.

The camera focuses on the main vocalist’s voice a lot throughout the sequence of the music video due to him being the star of the music video, and also him being the narrator of the video, and also actually being involved in the story.

The camera angles and the movement allow more contact and emotion with an audience and that attracts and grips an audience in and entertains them.

After about a quarter of the way through the video the entire band in introduces and shown through a cut between the narrative to the performance.

The band members all experience close ups in order to include them properly within the video. The other musicians also contribute to the song which therefore means that they then require screen time as well. Because of the cuts between the performances that are seen in the music video, a whole narrative is shown.

The lighting is natural daylight when he is walking down the street but when he is in the parking lot with the rest of the band the lighting becomes darker and lower.

The rest of the band are also dressed casually which offers a rough edge to their band image and the appearances of the band playing together offers a sort of friendly authenticity to their music.

The narrative of the song continues throughout the video whether it’s the main vocalist or the band or members of the public looking strangely at the lead vocalist because he is not moving from his seat which again shows consistency of a relationship between the lyrics and the video.

Questionnaire Data Analysis

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