Deconstruction of a Pop Music Video

Pre-production Deconstruction of a Pop Music Video

Pop music comes from the word popular, which is why it is mainstream music, it is what most people tend to listen to and what makes the charts, it’s a combination of many different genres, but is known for its simplistic and basic format of the verse chorus structure. I am going to deconstruct a pop video to see what the typical conventions of a pop video are.

SHOT TYPE: Mid shot

ANALYSIS: This shot allows you to focus on the main character of this ‘Love Story’, but it also allows the target audience to really relate with this as it is quite clear that the main character is at school from the opening sequence we saw, the background behind her and the books she’s holding. She displays innocence with her curly blonde hair and minimal make up and it covered up unlike in Hip-hop and RnB music videos. This helps create a connection with the younger audience members they are trying to entice and being a role model to them.

EDIT: The edits are very soft and dreamy like the video story line is meant to be like, this creates a connection for the audience because they look at is as something that they want.

MUSIC/LYRICS: There are no lyrics at this point, simply just the music which is soft that fits with the character and story line/visuals.

SHOT: This shot is a wide long shot

ANALYSE: This shot uses a wide long shot to make a more dramatic affect on the size of the castle and make her look really small in comparison to show how grand this place she is in is. It also creates that sense of in touching distance to her and that life. It is very clean and beautiful making it look more fairy-tale like and more appealing and desirable to the target audience, they have dressed her in a princess dress and done her hair in a posh up do to again make the audience want to be like her. The colours used are creams and whites, this shows connotes the innocence. The lighting is cleverly done with the sun shining from the back though making it more beautiful and giving the character an angelic glow that again young audience members will look too and want to have and be like. It also uses intertextual reference to common fairy tales such as Cinderella or Romeo and Juliet to grasp their audience and make them fall in love with her little love story as well as the song itself.

EDIT: This shot is a zooming in shot to her face which allows us to become closer to her and closer to that fairy-tale, it soft to carry on the dreamy feel that it started with.

MUSIC/LYRICS: The song begins here with her singing;

             “We were both young when I first saw you”

This connotes to an audience that she’s reminiscing and thinking about the past due to the past tense and her gaze into the distance.

SHOT: This shot is a high angle, wide long shot.

ANALYSIS: This shot shows the typical conventions of a pop music video as it has a dance routine, this is very common within this genre, even though this kind of dance is a lot different to the usual type that we see on pop videos, but this is because it has to fit in with the story and the time era that it is in. The costumes and the lighting make it seem very surreal, intimate, romantic and again something that young audiences will dream of, the idea of ‘finding their prince’. Pop videos are often very cheesy and cringey for an older audience to watch, which is why it is targeted at a younger audience. The fact we’re looking down makes us feel as though this is within touching distance and that that could be us.

EDIT: The edits are still soft and slow to help the flow of the video.

MUSIC/LYRICS:

       “Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone,

        I’ll be waiting”

These lyrics try and express to the young audience that there is such thing as a fairy-tale and a happily ever after. The lyrics don’t exactly go with the visuals on screen but it is easy to see that the point of the video is to show the progression in the relationship through her memories and is singing about the past.

From deconstructing this video and watching other pop videos it is apparent that the typical conventions of a music video are, a few costume changes, different and usually elaborate settings, a cheesy back story, a dance routine, a lot of close ups and direct singing to the camera to make the audience feel as though they know the singer personally, the lighting is often bright and dreamy, the clothing is colourful, they often have a lot of people surrounding them making them look more liked and popular which makes their young audience think that if they like this music and be like this person then they can have those kinds of relationships with people too. When there is a boy or girl band it is quite often each band member will be different from the other as the young audience can then pick their favourite, or the one their most like, or sometimes like JLS and The Saturdays, they have particular colours that each of them wear, this is a simple technique that allows the children to pick a favourite keeping them interested in whats going on. These are the things I have learnt that I will be able to use to understand better how I can put together my own music video.